MASTER  EUSTACE 


MASTER  EUSTACE 


BY 
HENRY  JAMES 


NEW  YORK 

THOMAS  SELTZER 

1920 


Copyright,  1920,  by 
THOMAS  SELTZER,  Inc. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 
AH  rights  reserved 


CONTENTS 


439185 


PAGE 

I 


PREFACE       

MASTER  EUSTACE • 

LONGSTAFF'S  MARRIAGE 57 

THEODOLINDE II1 

A  LIGHT  MAN J47 

BENVOLIO           2O3 


PREFACE 

The  five  stones  in  this  volume,  together  with  the 
Your  included  in  "A  Landscape  Painter,"  appeared 
originally  in  American  periodicals,  but  for  some  un^ 
known  reason  were  never  issued  by  Henry  James  in 
book  form  in  this  country.  The  present  volume, 
along  with  "A  Landscape  Painter,"  makes  accessi- 
J)le  to  the  American  public  the  nine  short  stories  of 
Henry  James  which  hitherto  have  been  accessible 
only  in  English  editions  of  his  works. 

I  hardly  need  to  emphasize  the  literary  value  of 
the  stories  in  this  volume — all  of  them  written  later 
than  "A  Landscape  Painter."  Both  critics  and  public 
have  expressed  surprise  at  the  amazing  precocity  of 
Henry  James  as  shown  in  the  tales  of  "A  Landscape 
Painter,"  all  of  which  were  written  before  the  author 
was  twenty-five.  The  stories  in  the  present  collec 
tion  are  more  mature  in  matter,  yet  they  retain  his 
earlier  simplicity  of  style.  Two  of  them  were 
written  when  he  was  almost  verging  towards  "the 
middle  years." 

T 


2   -'• Preface 

"LongstafFs  Marriage  (Scribner's  Monthly, 
August  1878)  and  "Benvolio"  (Galaxy,  August 
1875)  appeared  in  the  "Madonna  of  the  Future  and 
Other  Tales,"  published  in  London,  1879.  "Benvo 
lio"  also  appeared  in  the  English  edition  of  Henry 
James's  "Collection  of  Novels  and  Tales"  brought  out 
in  1883.  The  other  three  tales  in  this  volume, 
"Master  Eustace"  (Galaxy,  November  1871), 
"Theodolinde"  (Lippincott's  Magazine,  May  1878), 
and  "A  Light  Man"  (Galaxy,  July  1869)  appeared 
in  "Stories  Revived"  issued  in  three  volumes  in  Lon 
don  in  1885.  The  tale  "Theodolinde"  was  pub 
lished  there  with  the  title  "Rose  Agathe."  "A  Light 
Man"  has  also  been  reprinted  from  The  Galaxy  in 
America  in  a  collection  of  short  stories,  "Stories  by 
American  Authors,"  Volume  V,  1884,  but  not  in  any 
American  editions  of  Henry  James's  works. 

Like  the  tales  in  "A  Landscape  Painter,"  these 
stories  are  reprinted  from  the  periodicals  wherein 
they  first  appeared  and  not  from  the  English  edi 
tions.  Of  the  nine  tales  I  have  collected  here  and  in 
"A  Landscape  Painter,"  seven  were  published  by 
James  in  England  in  "Stories  Revived,"  constituting 
half  of  that  collection. 

From  an  autobiographical  point  of  view,  the  most 
interesting  tale  in  this  volume  is  "Benvolio."  The 
poet  Benvolio  is  evidently  a  bit  of  self -portraiture. 
Not  that  Henry  James  had  the  identical  experience 


Preface  3 


of  his  character.  But  the  reader  will  scarcely  fail 
to  recognize  in  Benvolio  the  restless  type  divided 
between  love  and  literature,  for  which  James  was 
his  own  model.  Henry  James  himself  tells  us  that 
he  drew  on  autobiographical  material  in  writing  his 
early  tales. 

It  is  interesting  to  observe  the  picture  of  the  young 
James  as  he  shows  it  to  us  in  his  early  works.  For 
it  is  safe  to  assume  that  the  type  of  character  he 
draws  most  frequently  is  the  one  that  approximates 
most  closely  to  himself.  The  young  man  we  meet 
oftenest  in  the  pages  of  James's  early  tales  and  works 
is  a  romantic,  gentlemanly,  persistent  wooer,  a  young 
man  travelling  in  Europe,  interested  in  art  or  litera 
ture.  He  falls  in  love,  often  with  no  encourage 
ment,  and  is  invariably  baffled  in  his  love.  In  almost 
every  case,  however,  the  youth  takes  his  medicine, 
for  he  is  chivalrous  to  the  point  of  annoyance,  and 
he  never  forgets  that  he  is  a  gentleman.  There  are 
several  such  types  in  "The  Portrait  of  a  Lady." 
Roderick  Hudson  is  of  that  type.  Sometimes  the 
young  man  has  his  affection  returned  but  is  thwarted 
in  the  end,  like  Christopher  Newman  in  "The 
American."  And  in  many  of  James's  shorter  stories 
the  plot  centers  round  the  ill  success  of  a  man  desir 
ing  marriage. 

Such  then,  in  the  large,  must  have  been  our  young 
author  himself.  This  view  of  him  we  find  confirmed 


4  Preface 


in  his  letters,  though  those  so  far  published  belong 
mainly  to  the  late  period  of  his  life.  In  his  letters 
we  see  James  a  lonely  bachelor,  thirsting  for  love 
and  friendship,  clinging  tenaciously  with  beautiful 
veneration  and  affection  to  relatives,  old  and  young 
friends,  and  not  excluding  the  fair  sex  in  his 
Platonic  admiration. 

In  a  word  he  is  very  much  like  the  young  men  we 
meet  oftenest  in  the  tales  of  "A  Landscape  Painter" 
and  "Master  Eustace." 

ALBERT  MORDELL. 
Philadelphia,  August,  1920. 


MASTER  EUSTACE 


MASTER   EUSTACE 


HAVING  handed  me  my  cup  of  tea,  she  pro 
ceeded  to  make  her  own;  an  operation  she 
performed  with  a  delicate  old-maidish  pre 
cision  I  delighted  to  observe. 

The  story  is  not  my  own — she  then  began — but 
that  of  persons  with  whom  for  a  time  I  was  inti 
mately  connected.  I  have  led  a  quiet  life.  This 
is  my  only  romance — and  it's  the  romance  of  others. 
When  I  was  a  young  woman  of  twenty-two  my 
poor  mother  died,  after  a  long,  weary  illness,  and 
I  found  myself  obliged  to  seek  a  new  home.  Mak 
ing  a  home  requires  time  and  money.  I  had  neither 
to  spare,  so  I  advertised  for  a  "situation,"  rating 
my  accomplishments  modestly,  and  asking  rather 
for  kind  treatment  than  high  wages.  Mrs.  Garnyer 
immediately  answered  my  advertisement.  She  of 
fered  me  a  fair  salary  and  a  peaceful  asylum.  I 
was  to  teach  her  little  boy  the  rudiments  of  my 
slender  stock  of  sciences  and  to  make  myself  gen- 

7 


8 Master  Eustace 

erally  useful.  Something  in  her  tone  and  manner 
assured  me  that  in  accepting  this  latter  condition 
I  was  pledging  myself  to  no  very  onerous  servitude, 
and  I  never  found  reason  to  repent  of  my  bargain. 
I  had  always  valued  my  freedom  before  all  things, 
and  it  seemed  to  me  that  in  trading  it  away  even 
partially  I  was  surrendering  a  priceless  treasure; 
but  Mrs.  Garnyer  made  service  easy.  I  liked  her 
from  the  first,  and  I  doubt  that  she  ever  fairly 
measured  my  fidelity  and  affection.  She  knew  that 
she  could  trust  me,  and  she  always  spoke  of  me  as 
"a  good  creature" ;  but  she  never  estimated  the 
trouble  I  saved  her,  or  the  little  burdens  I  lifted 
from  her  pretty,  feeble  shoulders.  Both  in  her 
position  and  her  person  there  was  something  singu 
larly  appealing.  She  was  in  those  days — indeed 
she  always  remained — a  very  pretty  little  woman. 
But  she  had  grace  even  more  than  beauty.  She 
was  young,  and  looked  even  younger  than  her  years ; 
slight,  light  of  tread  and  of  gesture,  though  not  at 
all  rapid  ( for  in  all  her  movements  there  was  a  kind 
of  pathetic  morbid  languor),  and  fairer,  whiter, 
purer  in  complexion  than  any  woman  I  have  seen. 
She  reminded  me  of  a  sketch  from  which  the  "shad 
ing"  has  been  omitted.  She  had  her  shadows 
indeed,  as  well  as  her  lights ;  but  they  were  all  turned 
inward.  She  might  have  seemed  compounded  of 
the  airy  substance  of  lights  and  shadows.  Nature 


Master  Eustace 9 

in  making  her  had  left  out  that  wholesome  leaden 
ballast  of  will,  of  logic,  of  worldly  zeal,  with  which 
we  are  all  more  or  less  weighted.  Experience,  how 
ever,  had  given  her  a  burden  to  carry;  she  was 
evidently  sorrow-laden.  She  shifted  the  cruel 
weight  from  shoulder  to  shoulder,  she  ached  and 
sighed  under  it,  and  in  the  depths  of  her  sweet 
natural  smile  you  saw  it  pressing  the  tears  from  her 
soul.  Mrs.  Garnyer's  trouble,  I  confess,  was  in  my 
eyes  an  added  charm.  I  was  desperately  fond  of 
a  bit  of  romance,  and  as  I  was  plainly  never  to  have 
one  of  my  own,  I  made  the  most  of  my  neighbor's. 
This  secret  sadness  of  hers  would  have  covered  more 
sins  than  I  ever  had  to  forgive  her.  At  first, 
naturally,  I  connected  her  unavowed  sorrow  with 
the  death  of  her  husband;  but  as  time  went  on,  I 
found  reason  to  believe  that  there  had  been  little 
love  between  the  pair.  She  had  married  against 
her  will.  Mr.  Garnyer  was  fifteen  years  her  senior, 
and,  as  she  frankly  intimated,  coarsely  and  cruelly 
dissipated.  Their  married  life  had  lasted  but  three 
years,  and  had  come  to  an  end  to  her  great  and 
obvious  relief.  Had  he  done  her  while  it  lasted 
some  irreparable  wrong?  I  fancied  so;  she  was  like 
a  garden  rose  with  half  its  petals  plucked.  He  had 
left  her  with  diminished  means,  though  her  prop 
erty  (mostly  her  own)  was  still  ample  for  her  needs. 
These,  with  those  of  her  son,  were  extremely  sim- 


10 Master  Eustace 

pie.  To  certain  little  luxuries  she  was  obstinately 
attached ;  but  her  manner  of  life  was  so  monotonous 
and  frugal  that  she  must  have  spent  but  a  fraction 
of  her  income.  It  was  her  single  son — the  heir  of 
her  hopes,  the  apple  of  her  eye — that  she  intrusted 
to  my  care.  He  was  five  years  old,  and  she  had 
taught  him  his  letters — a  great  feat,  she  seemed  to 
think;  she  was  as  proud  of  it  as  if  she  had  invented 
the  alphabet  for  the  occasion.  She  had  called  him 
Eustace,  for  she  meant  that  he  should  have  the  best 
of  everything — the  prettiest  clothes,  the  prettiest 
playthings,  and  the  prettiest  name.  He  was  him 
self  as  pretty  as  his  name,  though  but  little  like  his 
mother.  He  was  slight  like  her,  but  far  more  ner 
vous  and  decided,  and  he  had  neither  her  features 
nor  her  coloring.  Least  of  all  had  he  her  expres 
sion.  Mrs.  Garnyer's  attitude  was  one  of  tender, 
pensive  sufferance  modified  by  hopes — a  certain 
half-mystical  hope  which  seemed  akin  to  religion, 
but  which  was  not  all  religion,  for  the  heaven  she 
dreamed  of  was  lodged  here  below.  The  boy  from 
his  early  childhood  wore  an  air  of  defiance  and 
authority.  He  was  not  one  to  wait  for  things,  good 
or  evil,  but  to  snatch  boldly  at  the  one  sort  and  snap 
his  fingers  at  the  other.  He  had  a  pale,  dark  skin, 
not  altogether  healthy  in  tone ;  a  mass  of  fine  brown 
hair,  which  seemed  given  him  just  to  emphasize  by 
its  dancing  sweep  the  petulant  little  nods  and  shakes 


Master  Eustace 


of  his  head  ;  and  a  deep,  wilful,  malicious  eye.  His 
eyes  told  me  from  the  first  that  I  should  have  no 
easy  work  with  him  ;  and  in  spite  of  a  vast  expense 
of  tact  and  tenderness,  no  easy  work  it  turned  out 
to  be.  His  wits  were  so  quick,  however,  and  his 
imagination  so  lively,  that  I  gradually  managed  to 
fill  out  his  mother's  meagre  little  programme  of 
study.  This  had  been  drawn  up  with  a  sparing 
hand;  her  only  fear  was  of  his  being  overworked. 
The  poor  lady  had  but  a  dim  conception  of  what 
a  man  of  the  world  is  expected  to  know.  She 
thought,  I  believe,  that  with  his  handsome  face,  his 
handsome  property,  and  his  doting  mother,  he  would 
need  to  know  little  more  than  how  to  sign  that  pretty 
name  of  Eustace  to  replies  to  invitations  to  dinners. 
I  wonder  now  that  with  her  constant  interference 
I  contrived  to  set  the  child  intellectually  on  his  legs. 
Later,  when  he  had  a  tutor,  I  received  a  compliment 
for  my  perseverance. 

The  truth  is,  I  became  fond  of  him  ;  his  very  im 
perfections  fascinated  me.  He  would  soon  enough 
have  to  take  his  chance  of  the  world's  tolerance, 
and  society  would  cease  to  consist  for  him  of  a 
couple  of  coaxing  women.  I  told  Mrs.  Garnyer 
that  there  was  never  an  easier  child  to  spoil,  and 
that  those  caressing  hands  of  hers  would  sow  a 
crop  of  formidable  problems  for  future  years.  But 
Mrs.  Garnyer  was  utterly  incapable  of  taking  a 


12 Master  Eustace 

rational  view  of  matters,  or  of  sacrificing  to-day  to 
to-morrow;  and  her  folly  was  the  more  incurable 
as  it  was  founded  on  a  strange,  moonshiny  little 
principle — a  crude,  passionate  theory  that  love,  love, 
pure  love  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  maternal  duty; 
and  that  the  love  which  reasons  and  exacts  and 
denies  is  cruel  and  wicked  and  hideous.  "I  know 
you  think  I'm  a  silly  goose,"  she  said,  "and  not  fit 
to  have  a  child  at  all.  But  you're  wrong — I  promise 
you  you're  wrong.  I'm  very  reasonable,  I'm  very 
patient ;  I  have  a  great  deal  to  bear — more  than  you 
know — and  I  bear  it  very  well.  But  one  can't  be 
always  on  the  stretch — always  hard  and  wise  and 
good.  In  some  things  one  must  break  down  and 
be  one's  poor,  natural,  lonely  self.  Eustace  can't 
turn  out  wrong;  it's  impossible;  it  would  be  too 
cruel.  You  mustn't  say  it  nor  hint  it.  I  shall  do 
with  him  as  my  heart  bids  me;  he's  all  I  have;  he 
consoles  me." 

My  notions  perhaps  were  a  little  old-fashioned; 
but  surely  it  will  never  altogether  go  out  of  fashion 
to  teach  a  child  that  he  is  not  to  have  the  moon  by 
crying  for  it.  Now  Eustace  had  a  particular  fancy 
for  the  moon — for  everything  bright  and  inaccessible 
and  absurd.  His  will  was  as  sharp  as  a  steel  spring, 
and  it  was  vain  to  attempt  to  bend  it  or  break  it. 
He  had  an  indefeasible  conviction  that  he  was  num 
ber  one  among  men;  and  if  he  had  been  born  in 


Master  Eustace 13 

the  purple,  as  they  say,  of  some  far-off  Eastern 
court,  or  the  last  consummate  fruit  of  a  shadowy 
line  of  despots,  he  couldn't  have  been  more  closely 
curtained  in  this  superb  illusion.  I  pierced  it  here 
and  there  as  roughly  as  I  dared;  but  his  mother's 
light  fingers  speedily  repaired  my  punctures.  The 
poor  child  had  no  sense  of  justice.  He  had  the 
graceful  virtues,  but  not  the  legal  ones.-  He  could 
condescend,  he  could  forgive,  he  could  permit  this, 
that,  and  the  other,  with  due  leave  asked;  but  he 
couldn't  endure  the  hint  of  conflicting  right.  Poor 
puny  little  mortal,  sitting  there  wrapped  in  his 
golden  mist,  listening  to  the  petty  trickle  of  his 
conscious  favor  and  damming  it — a  swelling  foun 
tain  of  privileges !  He  could  love,  love  passionately; 
but  he  was  so  jealous  and  exacting  that  his  love 
cost  you  very  much  more  than  it  was  worth.  I 
found  it  no  sinecure  to  possess  the  confidence  I  had 
striven  so  cunningly  to  obtain.  He  fancied  it  a  very 
great  honor  that  he  should  care  to  harness  me  up 
as  his  horse,  to  throw  me  his  ball  by  the  hour,  to 
have  me  joggle  with  him  (sitting  close  to  the  mid 
dle)  on  the  see-saw  till  my  poor  bones  ached. 
Nevertheless,  in  this  frank,  childish  arrogance  there 
was  an  almost  irresistible  charm,  and  I  was  absurdly 
flattered  by  enjoying  his  favor.  Poor  me!  at 
twenty-three  I  was  his  first  "conquest" — the  first 
in  a  long  list,  as  I  believe  it  came  to  be.  If  he 


14 Master  Eustace 

demanded  great  license,  he  used  it  with  a  peculiar 
grace  of  his  own,  and  he  admitted  the  correspond 
ing  obligation  of  being  clever  and  brilliant.  As  a 
child  even,  he  seemed  to  be  in  a  sort  of  occult  sym 
pathy  with  the  picturesque.  His  talents  were  ex 
cellent,  and  teaching  him,  whatever  it  may  have 
been,  was  at  least  not  dull  work.  It  was  indeed  less 
to  things  really  needful  than  to  the  luxuries  of  learn 
ing  that  he  took  most  kindly.  He  had  an  excellent 
ear  for  music,  and  though  he  never  fairly  practised, 
he  turned  off  an  air  as  neatly  as  you  could  have 
wished.  In  this  he  resembled  his  mother,  who  was 
a  natural  musician.  She,  however,  was  always  at 
the  piano,  and  whenever  I  think  of  her  in  those  early 
years,  I  see  her  sitting  before  it  musingly,  half  sadly, 
with  her  pretty  head  on  one  side,  her  fair  braids 
thrust  behind  her  ears — ears  from  which  a  couple 
of  small  but  admirable  diamonds  were  never  absent 
— and  her  white  hands  wandering  over  the  notes, 
seeking  vaguely  for  an  air  which  they  seemed  hardly 
to  dare  to  remember.  Eustace  had  an  insatiable 
appetite  for  stories,  though  he  was  one  of  the  coolest 
and  most  merciless  of  critics.  I  can  fancy  him  now 
at  my  knee  with  his  big,  superbly-expectant  eyes 
fastened  on  my  lips,  demanding  more  wonders  and 
more,  till  my  poor  little  short-winded  invention  had 
to  cry  mercy  for  its  impotence.  Do  my  best,  I  could 
never  startle  him ;  my  giants  were  never  big  enough 


Master  Eustace 15 

and  my  fairies  never  small  enough,  and  my  en 
chanters,  my  prisoners,  my  castles  never  on  the 
really  grand  scale  of  his  own  imaginative  needs.  I 
felt  pitifully  prosaic.  At  last  he  would  always  open 
his  wilful  little  mouth  and  gape  in  my  face  with  a 
dreadfully  dry  want  of  conviction.  I  felt  flattered 
when  by  chance  I  had  pleased  him,  for,  by  a  pre 
cocious  instinct,  he  knew  tinsel  from  gold.  "Look 
here,"  he  would  say,  "y°u're  dreadfully  ugly;  what 
makes  you  so  ugly?  Your  nose  is  so  big  at  the 
end."  (You  needn't  protest;  I  was  ugly.  Like 
most  very  plain  women,  I  have  improved  with 
time. )  Of  course  I  used  to  rebuke  him  for  his  rude 
ness,  though  I  secretly  thanked  it,  for  it  taught  me 
a  number  of  things.  Once  he  said  something,  I  for 
get  what,  which  made  me  burst  into  tears.  It  was 
the  first  time,  and  the  last ;  for  I  found  that,  instead 
of  stirring  his  pity,  tears  only  moved  his  contempt, 
and  apparently  a  kind  of  cynical,  physical  disgust. 
The  best  way  was  to  turn  the  tables  on  him  by  pre 
tending  to  be  cool  and  indifferent  and  superior.  In 
that  case  he  himself  would  condescend  to  tears — 
bitter,  wrathful  tears.  Then  you  had  perhaps  gained 
nothing,  but  you  had  lost  nothing.  In  every  other 
case  you  had. 

Of  course  these  close  relations  lasted  but  a  couple 
of  years.  I  had  made  him  very  much  wiser  than 
myself ;  he  was  growing  tall  and  boyish  and  terribly 


16 Master  Eustace 

inquisitive.  My  poor  little  stories  ceased  to  have 
any  illusion  for  him;  and  he  would  spend  hours 
lying  on  his  face  on  the  carpet,  kicking  up  his  neat 
little  legs  and  poring  over  the  "Arabian  Nights," 
the  "Fairy  Queen,"  the  dozen  prime  enchanters  of 
childhood.  My  advice  would  have  been  to  pack  him 
off  to  school;  but  I  might  as  well  have  asked  his 
mother  to  send  him  to  the  penitentiary.  He  was 
to  be  educated  en  prince;  he  was  to  have  a  teacher 
to  himself.  I  thought  sympathetically  of  the  worthy 
pedagogue  who  was  to  enjoy  Eustace  without  con 
currence.  But  such  a  one  was  easily  found — in  fact, 
he  was  found  three  times  over.  Three  private  tutors 
came  and  went  successively.  They  fell  in  love, 
categorically,  with  Mrs.  Garnyer.  Their  love  indeed 
she  might  have  put  up  with;  but  unhappily,  unlike 
Viola,  they  told  their  love — by  letter — with  an  offer 
of  their  respective  hands.  Their  letters  were  dif 
ferent,  but  to  Mrs.  Garnyer  their  hands  were  all 
alike,  and  alike  distasteful.  "The  horrid  creatures !" 
was  her  invariable  commentary.  "I  wouldn't  speak 
to  them  for  the  world.  My  dear,  you  must  do  it." 
And  I,  who  had  never  declined  an  offer  on  my  own 
account,  went  to  work  in  this  wholesale  fashion  for 
my  friend!  You  will  say  that  young  as  she  was, 
pretty,  independent,  lovely,  Mrs.  Garnyer  would 
have  looked  none  the  worse  for  a  spice  of  coquetry. 
Nay,  in  her  own  eyes,  she  would  have  been  hideous. 


Master  Eustace T7 

Her  greatest  charm  for  me  was  a  brave  little  pas 
sion  of  scorn  for  this  sort  of  levity,  and  indeed  a 
general  contempt  for  cheap  sentimental  effects.  It 
was  as  if,  from  having  drunk  at  the  crystal  head 
spring,  she  had  lost  her  taste  for  standing  water. 
She  was  absolutely  indifferent  to  attention;  in  fact, 
she  seemed  to  shrink  from  it.  She  hadn't  a  trace 
of  personal  vanity;  she  was  even  without  visible 
desire  to  please.  Unfortunately,  as  you  see,  she 
pleased  in  spite  of  herself.  As  regards  love,  she  had 
an  imposing  array  of  principles;  on  this  one  point 
her  floating  imagination  found  anchorage.  "It's 
either  a  passion,"  she  said,  "or  it's  nothing.  You 
can  know  it  by  being  willing  to  give  up  everything 
for  it — name  and  fame,  past  and  future,  this  world 
and  the  next.  Do  you  keep  back  a  feather's  weight 
of  tenderness  and  trust?  Then  you're  not  in  love. 
You  must  risk  everything,  for  you  get  everything 
— if  you're  happy.  I  can't  understand  a  woman 
trifling  with  love.  They  talk  about  the  unpardon 
able  sin ;  that's  it,  it  seems  to  me.  Do  you  know  the 
word  in  the  language  I  most  detest?  Flirtation. 
Poh !  it  makes  me  ill."  When  Mrs.  Garnyer  uttered 
this  hint  of  an  esoteric  doctrine,  her  clear  blue  eyes 
would  become  clouded  with  the  gathered  mists  of 
memory.  In  this  matter  she  understood  herself 
and  meant  what  she  said. 

Defiant  as  she  was  of  admiration,  she  saw  little 


18_ Master  Eustace 

of  the  world.  She  met  her  few  friends  but  two  or 
three  times  a  year,  and  was  without  a  single  inti 
mate.  As  time  went  on,  she  came  to  care  more  for 
me  than  for  anyone.  When  Eustace  had  outgrown 
my  teaching,  she  insisted  on  my  remaining  in  any 
capacity  I  chose — as  housekeeper,  companion,  seam 
stress,  guest;  I  might  make  my  own  terms.  I  be 
came  a  little  of  each  of  these,  and  with  the  increas 
ing  freedom  of  our  intercourse  grew  to  regard  her 
as  a  younger  and  weaker  sister.  I  gave  her,  for 
what  it  was  worth,  my  frankest  judgment  on  all 
things.  Her  own  confidence  always  stopped  short 
of  a  certain  point.  A  little  curtain  of  reticence 
seemed  always  to  hang  between  us.  Sometimes  I 
fancied  it  growing  thinner  and  thinner,  becoming 
almost  transparent  and  revealing  the  figures  behind 
it.  Sometimes  it  seemed  to  move  and  flutter  in  the 
murmur  of  our  talk,  so  that  in  a  moment  it  might 
drop  or  melt  away  into  air.  But  it  was  a  magical 
web;  it  played  a  hundred  tormenting  tricks,  and 
year  after  year  it  hung  in  its  place.  Of  course  this 
inviolate  mystery  stirred  my  curiosity,  but  I  can't 
say  more  for  the  disinterested  tenderness  I  felt  for 
Mrs.  Garnyer  than  that  it  never  unduly  irritated  it. 
I  lingered  near  the  door  of  her  Blue-Beard's  cham 
ber,  but  I  never  peeped  through  the  keyhole.  She 
was  a  poor  lady  with  a  secret;  I  took  her  into  my 
heart,  secret  and  all.  She  proclaimed  that  her  isola- 


Master  Eustace 19 

tion  was  her  own  choice,  and  pretended  to  be  vastly 
content  that  society  let  her  so  well  alone.  She  made 
her  widowhood  serve  as  a  motive  for  her  lonesome 
days,  and  declared  that  her  boy's  education  amply 
filled  them.  She  was  a  widow,  however,  who  never 
of  her  own  accord  mentioned  her  husband's  name, 
and  she  wore  her  weeds  very  lightly.  She  was  very 
fond  of  white,  and  for  six  months  of  the  year  was 
rarely  seen  in  a  dark  dress.  Occasionally,  on  cer 
tain  fixed  days,  she  would  flame  forth  in  some  old- 
fashioned  piece  of  finery  from  a  store  which  she 
religiously  preserved,  and  would  flash  about  the 
house  in  rose-color  or  blue.  One  day,  her  boy's 
birthday,  she  kept  with  fantastic  solemnity.  It  fell 
in  the  middle  of  September.  On  this  occasion  she 
would  put  on  a  faded  ball-dress,  overload  herself 
with  jewels  and  trinkets,  and  dress  her  hair  with 
flowers.  Eustace,  too,  she  would  trick  out  in  a  suit 
of  crimson  velvet,  and  in  this  singular  guise  the  pair 
would  walk  with  prodigious  gravity  about  the  gar 
den  and  up  and  down  the  avenue.  Every  now  and 
then  she  would  stoop  and  give  him  a  convulsive  hug. 
The  child  himself  seemed  to  feel  the  magnitude  of 
this  festival,  and  played  his  part  with  precocious 
discretion.  He  would  appear  at  dark  with  the  curl 
still  in  his  hair,  his  velvet  trousers  unstained,  his 
ruffles  uncrumpled.  In  the  evening  the  coachman 
let  off  rockets  in  the  garden;  we  feasted  on  ice- 


20 Master  Eustace 

cream,  and  a  bottle  of  champagne  was  sent  to  the 
kitchen.  No  wonder  Master  Eustace  took  on  the 
graces  of  an  heir-apparent !  Once,  I  remember,  the 
mother  and  son  were  overtaken  in  the  festal  prome 
nade  by  some  people  who  had  come  to  live  in  the 
neighborhood,  and  who  drove  up  rather  officiously 
to  leave  their  cards.  They  stared  in  amazement 
from  the  carriage  window,  and  were  told  Mrs. 
Garnyer  was  not  at  home.  A  few  days  later  we 
heard  that  Mrs.  Garnyer  was  out  of  her  mind;  she 
had  been  found  masquerading  in  her  grounds  with 
her  little  boy,  in  the  most  indecent  costume.  From 
time  to  time  she  received  an  invitation,  and  occa 
sionally  she  accepted  one.  When  she  went  out  she 
deepened  her  mourning,  but  she  always  came  home 
in  a  fret.  "It  is  the  last  house  I  will  go  to,"  she 
declared,  as  I  helped  her  to  undress.  "People's 
neglect  I  can  bear,  and  thank  them  for  it ;  but  Heaven 
deliver  me  from  their  kindness !  I  won't  be  patron 
ized—I  won't,  I  won't!  Shall  I,  my  boy?  We'll 
wait  till  you  grow  up,  shan't  we,  my  darling?  Then 
his  poor  little  mother  shan't  be  patronized,  shall  she, 
my  brave  little  man?"  The  child  was  constantly 
dangling  at  his  mother's  skirts,  and  was  seldom 
beyond  the  reach  of  some  such  passionate  invoca 
tion. 

A   preceptor  had  at  last  been   found   of  a  less 
inflammable  composition  than  the  others — a  worthy, 


Master  Eustace 21 

elderly  German  of  fair  attainments,  with  a  stout, 
sentimental  wife — she  gave  music  lessons  in  town 
— who  monopolized  his  ardors.  He  was  a  mild, 
patient  man— a  nose  of  wax,  as  the  saying  is.  A 
pretty  nose  it  grew  to  be  in  Eustace's  supple  fingers ! 
I'll  answer  for  it  that  in  all  those  years  he  never 
carried  a  point.  I  believe  that,  like  me,  he  had 
begun  with  tears;  but  finding  this  an  altogether 
losing  game,  he  was  content  now  to  take  off  his 
spectacles,  drop  his  head  on  one  side,  look  implor 
ingly  at  his  pupil  with  his  weak  blue  eyes,  and  then 
exhale  his  renunciation  in  a  plaintive  Lieber  Gott! 
Under  this  discipline  the  boy  bloomed  like  a  flower. 
But  it  was  to  my  sense  a  kind  of  hothouse  growth. 
His  tastes  were  sedentary,  and  he  lived  largely 
within  doors.  He  kept  a  horse  and  took  long  lonely 
rides;  but  most  of  the  time  he  spent  lounging  over 
a  book,  trifling  at  the  piano,  or  fretting  over  a  water- 
color  sketch,  which  he  was  sure  to  throw  aside  in 
disgust.  One  amusement  he  pursued  with  unweary 
ing  constancy ;  it  was  a  sign  of  especial  good  humor, 
and  I  never  knew  it  to  fail  him.  He  would  sit  for 
hours  lounging  in  a  chair,  with  his  head  thrown 
back  and  his  legs  extended,  staring  at  vacancy,  or 
what  seemed  to  us  so,  but  a  vacancy  filled  with  the 
silent  revel  of  his  fancy  and  the  images  it  evoked. 
What  was  the  substance  of  these  beatific  visions? 
The  broad,  happy  life  before  him,  the  great  world 


22 Master  Eustace 

whose  far-off  murmurs  caressed  his  ear — the  joys 
of  consummate  manhood — pleasure,  success,  pros 
perity — a  kind  of  triumphant  and  transfigured 
egotism.  His  reveries  swarmed  with  ideal  shapes 
and  transcendent  delights;  his  handsome  young 
face,  his  idle,  insolent  smile  were  the  cold  reflec 
tions  of  their  brightness.  His  mother,  after  watch 
ing  him  for  a  while  in  these  moods,  would  steal  up 
behind  him  and  kiss  him  softly  on  the  forehead,  as 
if  to  marry  his  sweet  illusions  to  sweet  reality. 
For  my  part,  I  wanted  to  divorce  them.  It  was  a 
sad  pity,  I  thought,  that  desire  and  occasion  in  the 
lad's  life  played  so  deftly  into  each  other's  hands. 
I  longed  to  spoil  the  game,  to  shuffle  the  cards  afresh 
and  give  him  a  taste  of  bad  luck.  I  felt  as  if  be 
tween  them — she  by  her  measureless  concessions, 
he  by  his  consuming  arrogance — they  were  sowing 
a  crop  of  dragon's  teeth.  This  sultry  summer  of 
youth  couldn't  last  forever,  and  I  knew  that  the 
poor  lady  would  be  the  first  to  suffer  by  a  change 
of  weather.  He  would  turn  some  day  in  his  pas 
sionate  vanity  and  rend  the  gentle  creature  who  had 
fed  it  with  the  delusive  wine  of  her  love.  And  yet 
he  had  a  better  angel  as  well  as  a  worse.  It  was 
a  marvel  to  see  how  this  sturdy  seraph  tussled  with 
the  fiends,  and,  in  spite  of  bruises  and  ruffled  pinions, 
returned  again  and  again  to  the  onset.  There  were 
days  when  his  generous,  boyish  gayety — the  natural 


Master  Eustace 23 

sunshine  of  youth  and  intelligence — warmed  our 
women's  hearts  to  their  depths  and  kindled  our  most 
trusting  smiles.  Me,  as  he  grew  older,  he  treated 
as  a  licensed  old-time  friend.  I  was  the  prince's 
jester.  I  used  to  tell  him  his  truths,  as  the  French 
say.  He  believed  them  just  enough  to  feel  an  agree 
able  irritation  in  listening;  for  the  rest,  doubtless, 
they  seemed  as  vague  and  remote  as  a  croaking 
good-wife's  gossip.  There  were  moments,  I  think, 
when  the  eternal  blue  sky  of  his  mother's  temper 
wearied  his  capricious  brain.  At  such  times  he 
would  come  and  sprawl  on  the  sofa  near  my  little 
work-table,  clipping  my  threads,  mixing  my  spools, 
mislaying  my  various  utensils,  and  criticizing  my 
work  without  reserve — chattering,  gossiping,  com 
plaining,  boasting.  With  all  his  faults  Eustace  had 
one  sovereign  merit — that  merit  without  which 
even  the  virtues  he  lacked  lose  half  their  charms : 
he  was  superbly  frank.  He  was  only  too  trans 
parent.  The  light  of  truth  played  through  his  rank 
pretensions,  and  against  it  they  stood  relieved  in 
his  hard  tenacity,  like  young  trees  against  a  sunset. 
He  uttered  his  passions,  and  uttered  them  only  too 
loudly;  you  received  ample  notice  of  his  vengeance. 
It  came  as  a  matter  of  course ;  he  never  took  it  out 
in  talk ;  but  you  were  warned. 

If   these   intense   meditations   of   which    I   have 
spoken  followed  exclusively  the  vista  of  his  per- 


24 Master  Eustace 

sonal  fortunes,  his  conversation  was  hardly  more 
disinterested.  It  was  altogether  about  himself — his 
ambitions,  his  ailments,  his  dreams,  his  needs,  his 
intentions.  He  talked  a  great  deal  of  his  property, 
and,  though  he  had  a  great  aversion  to  figures,  he 
knew  the  amount  of  his  expectations  before  he  was 
out  of  jackets.  He  had  a  shrewd  relish  for  luxury 
— and  indeed,  as  he  respected  pretty  things  and  used 
them  with  a  degree  of  tenderness  which  he  by  no 
means  lavished  upon  animated  objects,  saving,  spar 
ing,  and  preserving  them,  this  seemed  to  me  one 
of  his  most  human  traits,  though,  I  admit,  an  ex 
pensive  virtue — and  he  promised  to  spend  his  for 
tune  in  books  and  pictures,  in  art  and  travel.  His 
mother  was  imperiously  appealed  to  to  do  the  honors 
of  his  castles  in  the  air.  She  would  look  at  him 
always  with  her  doting  smile,  and  with  a  little  glow 
of  melancholy  in  her  eyes — a  faint  tribute  to  some 
shadowy  chance  that  even  her  Eustace  might  reckon 
without  his  host.  She  would  shake  her  head  ten 
derly,  or  lean  it  on  his  shoulder  and  murmur,  "Who 
knows,  who  knows?  It's  perhaps  as  foolish,  my 
son,  to  try  and  forecast  happiness  as  to  attempt  to 
take  the  measure  of  misery.  We  know  them  each 
when  they  come.  Whatever  comes  to  us,  at  all 
events,  we  shall  meet  it  together."  Resting  in  this 
delicious  contact,  with  her  arm  round  his  neck  and 
her  cheek  on  his  hair,  she  would  close  her  eyes  in 


Master  Eustace 


a  kind  of  tremor  of  ecstacy.  As  I  have  never  had 
a  son  myself,  I  can  speak  of  maternity  but  by  hear 
say;  but  I  feel  as  if  I  knew  some  of  its  secrets,  as 
if  I  had  gained  from  Mrs.  Garnyer  a  revelation  of 
maternal  passion.  The  perfect  humility  of  her  J 
devotion,  indeed,  seemed  to  me  to  point  to  some 
motive  deeper  than  vulgar  motherhood.  It  looked 
like  a  kind  of  penance,  a  kind  of  pledge.  Had  she 
done  him  some  early  wrong?  Did  she  meditate 
some  wrong  to  come?  Did  she  wish  to  purchase 
pardon  for  the  past  or  impunity  for  the  future? 
One  might  have  fancied  from  the  lad's  calm  relish 
of  her  incense  —  as  if  it  were  the  fumes  of  some 
perfumed  chibouque  palpitating  lazily  through  his 
own  lips  —  that  he  had  a  comfortable  sense  of  some 
thing  to  forgive.  In  fact,  he  had  something  to  for 
give  us  all  —  our  dullness,  our  vulgarity,  our  not 
guessing  his  unuttered  desires  —  the  want  of  a  super- 
celestial  harmony  between  our  wills  and  his.  I 
fancied,  however,  that  there  were  even  moments 
when  he  turned  dizzy  on  the  cope  of  this  awful  gulf 
of  his  mother's  self-sacrifice.  Fixing  his  eyes,  then, 
an  instant  to  steady  himself,  he  took  comfort  in  the 
thought  that  she  had  ceased  to  suffer  —  her  personal 
ambitions  lay  dead  at  the  bottom.  He  could  vaguely 
see  them  —  distant,  dim,  motionless.  It  was  to  be 
hoped  that  no  adventurous  ghost  of  these  shuffled 
passions  would  climb  upward  to  the  light. 


26 Master  Eustace 

A  frequent  source  of  complaint  with  Eustace, 
when  he  had  no  more  immediate  displeasure,  was 
that  he  had  not  known  his  father.  He  had  formed 
a  mental  image  of  the  late  Mr.  Garnyer  which  I  am 
afraid  hardly  tallied  at  all  points  with  the  original. 
He  knew  that  his  father  had  been  a  man  of  pleasure, 
and  he  had  painted  his  portrait  in  ideal  hues.  What 
a  charming  father — a  man  of  pleasure!  the  boy 
thought,  fancying  that  gentlemen  of  this  stamp  take 
their  pleasure  in  the  nursery.  What  pleasure  they 
might  have  shared;  what  rides,  what  talks,  what 
games,  what  adventures — what  far  other  hours  than 
those  he  passed  in  the  deserted  billiard-room  (this 
had  been  one  of  Mr.  Garnyer's  pleasures)  clicking 
the  idle  balls  in  the  stillness.  He  learned  to  talk 
very  early  of  shaping  his  life  on  his  father's.  What 
he  had  done  his  son  would  do.  A  dozen  odds  and 
ends  which  had  belonged  to  Mr.  Garnyer  he  carried 
to  his  room,  where  he  arranged  them  on  his  mantel 
shelf  like  relics  on  a  high  altar.  When  he  had 
turned  seventeen  he  began  to  smoke  an  old  silver- 
mounted  pipe  which  had  his  father's  initials  em 
bossed  on  the  bowl.  "It  would  be  a  great  blessing," 
he  said  as  he  puffed  this  pipe — it  made  him  dis 
mally  sick,  for  he  hated  tobacco — "to  have  some 
man  in  the  house.  It's  so  fearfully  womanish  here. 
No  one  but  you  two  and  HaufT,  and  what's  he  but 
an  old  woman?  Mother,  why  have  you  always  lived 


Master  Eustace 27 

in  this  way?  What's  the  matter  with  you?  You've 
got  no  savoir  viure.  What  are  you  blushing  about? 
That  comes  of  moping  here  all  your  days — that  you 
blush  for  nothing.  I  don't  want  my  mother  to  blush 
for  anything  or  anyone,  not  even  for  me.  But  I 
give  you  notice,  I  can  stand  it  no  longer.  Now  I'm 
seventeen,  it's  time  I  should  see  the  world.  I'm 
going  to  travel.  My  father  travelled;  he  went  all 
over  Europe.  There's  a  little  French  book  upstairs, 
the  poems  of  Parny — it's  awfully  French,  too — 
with  'Henry  Garnyer,  Paris,  1802,'  on  the  fly-leaf. 
I  must  go  to  Paris.  I  shan't  go  to  college.  I've 
never  been  to  school.  I  want  to  be  complete — pri 
vately  educated  altogether.  Very  few  people  are, 
here;  it's  quite  a  distinction.  Besides,  I  know  all 
I  want  to  know.  Hauff  brought  me  out  some  col 
lege  catalogues.  They're  absurd ;  he  laughs  at  them. 
We  did  all  that  three  years  ago.  I  know  more  about 
books  than  most  young  fellows;  what  I  want  is 
knowledge  of  the  world.  My  father  had  it,  and 
you  haven't,  mother.  But  he  had  plenty  of  taste,  too. 
Hauff  says  that  little  edition  of  Parny  is  very  rare. 
I  shall  bring  home  lots  of  such  things.  You'll  see !" 
Mrs.  Garnyer  listened  to  such  effusions  of  filial  emu 
lation  in  sad,  distracted  silence.  I  couldn't  but  pity 
her.  She  knew  that  her  husband  was  no  proper 
model  for  her  child ;  yet  she  couldn't  in  decency  turn 
his  heart  again  his  father's  memory.  She  took 


28 Master  Eustace 

refuge  in  that  attitude  of  tremulous  contemplation 
which  committed  her  neither  to  condemnation  of 
her  husband  nor  to  approval  with  her  son. 

She  had  recourse  at  this  period,  as  I  have  known 
her  to  do  before,  to  a  friend  attached  to  a  mercantile 
house  in  India — an  old  friend,  she  had  told  me ;  "in 
fact,"  she  had  added,  "my  only  friend,  a  man  to 
whom  I  am  under  immense  obligations."  Once  in 
six  months  there  came  to  her  from  this  distant  bene 
factor  a  large  square  letter,  heavily  sealed  and 
covered  with  foreign  post-marks.  I  used  to  fancy 
it  a  kind  of  bulletin  of  advice  for  the  coming  half 
year.  Advice  about  what  ?  Her  cares  were  so  few, 
her  habits  so  simple,  that  they  offered  scanty  matter 
for  discussion.  But  now,  of  course,  came  a  packet 
of  counsel  as  to  Eustace's  absence.  I  knew  that  she 
dreaded  it ;  but  since  her  oracle  had  spoken,  she  wore 
a  brave  face.  She  was  certainly  a  devout  postulant. 
She  concealed  from  Eustace  the  extent  of  her  de 
pendence  on  this  far-away  adviser,  for  the  boy 
would  have  resented  such  interference,  even  though 
it  favored  his  own  schemes.  She  had  always  read 
her  friend's  letters  in  secret ;  this  was  the  only  prac 
tice  of  her  life  she  failed  to  share  with  her  son.  Me 
she  now  for  the  first  time  admitted  into  her  con 
fidence.  "Mr.  Cope  strongly  recommends  my  letting 
him  go,"  she  said.  "He  says  it  will  make  a  man 
of  him.  He  needs  to  rub  against  other  men.  I 


Master  Eustace  29 

suppose  at  least,"  she  cried  with  her  usual  sweet 
fatuity,  "it  will  do  other  men  no  harm !  Perhaps  I 
don't  love  him  as  I  ought,  and  that  I  must  lose  him 
awhile  to  learn  to  prize  him.  If  I  only  get  him  back 
again!  It  would  be  monstrous  that  I  shouldn't! 
But  why  are  we  cursed  with  these  frantic  woes  and 
fears?  It's  a  weary  life!"  She  would  have  said 
more  if  she  had  known  that  it  was  not  his  departure 
but  his  return  that  was  to  be  cruel. 

The  excellent  Mr.  Hauff  was  deemed  too  mild 
and  infirm  to  cope  with  the  hazards  of  travel;  but 
a  companion  was  secured  in  the  person  of  his 
nephew,  an  amiable  young  German  who  claimed  to 
possess  erudition  and  discretion  in  equal  manner. 
For  a  week  before  he  left  us  Eustace  was  so  serene 
and  joyous  of  humor  as  to  double  his  mother's  sense 
of  loss.  "I  give  her  into  your  care/'  he  said  to  me. 
"If  anything  happens  to  her,  I  shall  hold  you  re 
sponsible.  She  is  very  woe-begone  just  now,  but 
she'll  cheer  up  yet.  But,  mother,  you're  not  to  be 
too  cheerful,  mind.  You're  not  to  forget  me  an  in 
stant.  If  you  do,  I'll  never  forgive  you.  I  insist 
on  being  missed.  There's  little  enough  merit  in 
loving  me  when  I'm  here ;  I  wish  to  be  loved  in  my 
absence."  For  many  weeks  after  he  left,  he  might 
have  been  satisfied.  His  mother  wandered  about 
like  a  churchyard  ghost  keeping  watch  near  a  buried 
treasure.  When  his  letters  began  to  come,  she  read 


30 Master  Eustace 

them  over  a  dozen  times,  and  sat  for  hours  with 
her  eyes  closed  holding  them  in  her  hand.  They 
were  wretchedly  meagre  and  hurried ;  but  their  very 
brevity  gratified  her.  He  was  prosperous  and  happy, 
and  could  snatch  but  odd  moments  from  his  pleasure- 
taking. 

One  morning,  after  he  had  been  away  some  three 
months,  there  came  two  letters,  one  from  Eustace, 
the  other  from  India,  the  latter  very  much  in  ad 
vance  of  its  time.  Mrs.  Garnyer  opened  the  Indian 
letter  first.  I  was  pouring  out  tea;  I  observed  her 
from  behind  the  urn.  As  her  eyes  ran  over  the 
pages  she  turned  deadly  pale ;  then  raising  her  glance 
she  met  mine.  Immediately  her  paleness  turned  to 
crimson.  She  rose  to  her  feet  and  hurried  out  of 
the  room,  leaving  Eustace's  letter  untouched  on  the 
table.  This  little  fact  was  eloquent,  and  my  curiosity 
was  aroused.  Later  in  the  day  it  was  partially 
satisfied.  She  came  to  me  with  a  singular  conscious 
look — the  look  of  a  sort  of  oppression  of  happiness 
—and  announced  that  Mr.  Cope  was  coming  home. 
He  had  obtained  release  from  his  engagements  in 
India,  and  would  arrive  in  a  fortnight.  She  uttered 
herewith  no  words  of  rejoicing,  but  I  fancied  her 
joy  was  of  the  unutterable  sort.  As  the  days 
elapsed,  however,  her  emotion  betrayed  itself  in  a 
restless,  aimless  flutter  of  movement,  so  intense  as 
to  seem  to  me  almost  painful.  She  roamed  about 


Master  Eustace 


the  house  singing  to  herself,  gazing  out  of  the  win 
dows,  shifting  the  chairs  and  tables,  smoothing  the 
curtains,  trying  vaguely  to  brighten  the  faded  look 
of  things.  Before  every  mirror  she  paused  and  in 
spected  herself,  with  that  frank  audacity  of  pretty 
women  which  I  have  always  envied,  tucking  up  a 
curl  of  her  blond  hair  or  smoothing  a  crease  in 
those  muslins  which  she  always  kept  so  fresh.  Of 
Eustace  for  the  moment  she  rarely  spoke  ;  the  boy's 
prediction  had  not  been  so  very  much  amiss.  Who 
was  this  wonderful  Mr.  Cope,  this  mighty  magician  ? 
I  very  soon  learned.  He  arrived  on  the  day  he 
had  fixed,  and  took  up  his  lodging  in  the  house. 
From  the  moment  I  looked  at  him,  I  felt  that  here 
was  a  man  I  should  like.  My  poor  unflattered  soul, 
I  suppose,  was  won  by  the  kindness  of  his  greeting. 
He  had  often  heard  of  me,  he  said;  he  knew  how 
good  a  friend  I  had  been  to  Mrs.  Garnyer  ;  he  begged 
to  bespeak  a  proportionate  friendship  for  himself. 
I  felt  as  if  I  were  amply  thanked  for  my  years  of 
household  zeal.  But  in  spite  of  this  pleasant  as 
surance,  I  had  a  sense  of  being  for  the  moment 
altogether  de  trop.  He  was  united  to  his  friend  by 
a  closer  bond  than  I  had  suspected.  I  left  them 
alone  with  their  mutual  secrets  and  effusions,  and 
confined  myself  to  my  own  room  ;  though  indeed  I 
had  noticed  between  them  a  sort  of  sentimental  intel 
ligence,  so  deep  and  perfect  that  many  words  were 


32 Master  Eustace 

exchanged  without  audible  speech.  Mrs.  Garnyer 
underwent  a  singular  change ;  I  seemed  to  know  her 
now  for  the  first  time.  It  was  as  if  she  had  flung 
aside  a  veil  which  muffled  her  tones  and  blurred  her 
features.  There  was  a  new  decision  in  her  tread, 
a  deeper  meaning  in  her  smile.  So,  at  thirty-eight 
her  girlhood  had  come  back  to  her!  She  was  as 
full  of  blushes  and  random  prattle  and  foolish  fal- 
terings  for  very  pleasure  as  a  young  bride.  Upon 
Mr.  Cope  the  years  had  set  a  more  ineffaceable  seal. 
He  was  a  man  of  forty-five,  but  you  would  have 
given  him  ten  years  more.  He  had  that  look  which 
I  have  always  liked  of  people  who  have  lived  in  hot 
climates,  a  bronzed  complexion,  and  a  cool  deliber 
ate  gait,  as  if  he  had  learned  to  think  twice  before 
moving.  He  was  tall  and  lean,  yet  extremely  mas 
sive  in  shape,  like  a  stout  man  emaciated  by  cir 
cumstances.  His  hair  was  thin  and  perfectly  white, 
and  he  wore  a  grizzled  moustache.  He  dressed  in 
loose,  light-colored  garments  of  those  fine  Eastern 
stuffs.  I  had  a  singular  impression  of  having  seen 
him  before,  but  I  could  never  say  when  or  where. 
He  was  extremely  deaf — so  deaf  that  I  had  to 
force  my  voice ;  though  I  observed  that  Mrs.  Garn 
yer  easily  made  him  hear  by  speaking  slowly  and 
looking  at  him.  He  had  peculiarly  that  patient  ap 
pealing  air  which  you  find  in  very  deaf  persons  less 
frequently  than  in  the  blind,  but  which  has  with 


Master  Eustace 33 

them  an  even  deeper  eloquence,  enforced  as  it  is  by 
the  normal  pathos  of  the  eye.  It  has  an  espe 
cially  mild  dignity  where,  as  in  Mr.  Cope,  it  over 
lies  a  truly  masculine  mind.  He  had  been  obliged 
to  make  good  company  of  himself,  and  the  glimpses 
that  one  got  of  this  blessed  fellowship  in  stillness 
were  of  a  kind  to  make  one  long  to  share  it.  But 
with  others,  too,  he  was  a  charming  talker,  though 
he  was  obliged  to  keep  the  talk  in  his  own  hands. 
He  took  your  response  for  granted  with  a  kind  of 
conciliating  bonhomie,  guessed  with  a  glance  at  your 
opinion,  and  phrased  it  usually  more  wittily  than 
you  would  have  done. 

For  ten  years  I  had  been  pitying  Mrs,  Garnyer; 
it  was  odd  to  find  myself  envying  her.  Patient 
waiting  is  no  loss ;  at  last  her  day  had  come.  I  had 
always  rather  wondered  at  her  patience;  it  was 
spiced  with  a  logic  all  its  own.  But  she  had  lived 
by  precept  and  example,  by  chapter  and  verse;  for 
his  sake  it  was  easy  to  be  wise.  I  say  for  "his" 
sake,  because  as  a  matter  of  course  I  now  connected 
her  visitor  with  that  undefined  secret  which  had 
been  one  of  my  earliest  impressions  of  Mrs.  Garn 
yer.  Mr.  Cope's  presence  renewed  my  memory  of 
it.  I  fitted  the  key  to  the  lock,  but  on  coming  to 
open  the  casket  I  was  disappointed  to  find  that  the 
best  of  the  mystery  had  evaporated.  Mr.  Cope,  I 
imagined,  had  been  her  first  and  only  love.  Her 


34 Master  Eustace 

parents  had  frowned  on  him  and  forced  her  into 
a  marriage  with  poor  dissolute  Mr.  Garnyer — a 
course  the  more  untender  as  he  had  already  spent 
half  his  own  property  and  was  likely  to  make  sad 
havoc  with  his  wife's.  He  had  a  high  social  value, 
which  the  girl's  own  family,  who  were  plain  enough 
people  to  have  had  certain  primitive  scruples  in 
larger  measure,  deemed  a  compensation  for  his 
vices.  The  discarded  lover,  thinking  she  had  not 
resisted  as  firmly  as  she  might,  embarked  for  India, 
and  there,  half  in  spite,  half  in  despair,  married  as 
sadly  remiss  as  herself.  She  had  trifled  with  his 
happiness ;  he  lived  to  repent.  His  wife  lived  as 
well  to  perpetuate  his  misery ;  it  was  my  belief  that 
she  had  only  recently  died,  and  that  this  event  was 
the  occasion  of  his  return.  When  he  arrived  he 
wore  a  weed  on  his  hat;  the  next  day  it  had  disap 
peared.  Reunion  had  come  to  them  in  the  after 
noon  of  life,  when  the  tricks  and  graces  of  passion 
are  no  longer  becoming;  but  when  these  have  spent 
themselves  something  of  passion  still  is  left,  and 
this  they  were  free  to  enjoy.  They  had  begun  to 
enjoy  it  with  the  chastened  zeal  of  which  I  caught 
the  aroma.  Such  was  my  reading  of  the  riddle. 
Right  or  not,  at  least  it  made  sense. 

I  had  promised  Eustace  to  write  to  him,  and  one 
afternoon  as  I  sat  alone,  well  pleased  to  have  a 
theme,  I  despatched  him  a  long  letter  full  of  the 


Master  Eustace 35 

praises  of  Mr.  Cope,  and  by  implication  of  the  echo 
of  his  mother's  happiness.  I  wished  to  anticipate 
his  possible  suspicions  and  reconcile  him  with  the 
altered  situation.  But  after  I  had  posted  my  letter, 
it  seemed  to  me  that  I  had  spoken  too  frankly.  I 
doubted  whether,  even  amid  the  wholesome  novelty 
of  travel,  he  had  unlearned  the  old  trick  of  jealousy. 
Jealousy  surely  would  have  been  quite  misplaced, 
for  Mr.  Cope's  affection  for  his  hostess  embraced 
her  boy  in  its  ample  scope.  He  regretted  the  lad's 
absence;  he  manifested  the  kindliest  interest  in 
everything  that  spoke  of  him ;  he  turned  over  his 
books,  he  looked  at  his  sketches,  he  examined  and 
compared  the  half  dozen  portraits  which  the  fond 
mother  had  caused  to  be  executed  at  various  stages 
of  his  growth.  One  hot  day,  when  poor  old  Mr. 
Hauff  travelled  out  from  town  for  news  of  his  pupil, 
he  made  a  point  of  being  introduced  and  of  shaking 
his  hand.  The  old  man  stayed  to  dinner,  and  on 
Mr.  Cope's  proposition  we  drank  the  boy's  health 
in  brimming  glasses.  The  old  German  of  course 
wept  profusely;  it  was  Eustace's  mission  to  make 
people  cry.  I  fancied  too  I  saw  a  tear  on  Mr. 
Cope's  lid.  The  cup  of  his  contentment  was  full; 
at  a  touch  it  overflowed.  On  the  whole,  however, 
he  took  this  bliss  of  reunion  more  quietly  than  his 
friend.  He  was  a  melancholy  man.  He  had  the 
air  of  one  for  whom  the  moral  of  this  fable  of  life 


36 Master  Eustace 

has  greater  charms  than  the  plot,  and  who  has  made 
up  his  mind  to  ask  no  favors  of  destiny.  When  he 
met  me,  he  used  to  smile  gently,  frankly,  saying 
little;  but  I  had  a  vast  relish  for  his  smile.  It 
seemed  to  say  much — to  murmur,  "Receive  my  com 
pliments.  You  and  I  are  a  couple  of  tested  souls ; 
we  understand  each  other.  We  are  not  agog  with 
the  privileges  of  existence,  like  charity  children  on 
a  picnic.  We  have  had,  each  of  us,  to  live  for 
years  without  the  thing  we  once  fancied  gave  life 
its  only  value.  We  have  tasted  of  bondage,  and 
patience,  taken  up  as  a  means,  has  grown  grateful 
as  an  end.  It  has  cured  us  of  eagerness."  So 
easily  it  gossiped,  the  smile  of  our  guest.  No  won 
der  I  liked  it. 

One  evening,  a  month  after  his  advent,  Mrs. 
Garnyer  came  to  me  with  a  strange  embarrassed 
smile.  "I  have  something  to  tell  you,"  she  said; 
"something  that  will  surprise  you.  Do  you  con 
sider  me  a  very  old  woman?  I  am  old  enough  to 
be  wiser,  you'll  say.  But  I've  never  been  so  wise 
as  to-day.  I'm  engaged  to  Mr.  Cope.  There !  make 
the  best  of  it.  I  have  no  apologies  to  make  to  any 
one/'  she  went  o<n  with  a  kind  of  defiant  manner. 
"It's  between  ourselves.  If  we  suit  each  other,  it's 
no  one's  business.  I  know  what  I'm  about.  He 
means  to  remain  in  this  country ;  we  should  be  con 
stantly  together  and  extremely  intimate.  As  he 


Master  Eustace 37 

says,  I'm  young  enough  to  be — what  do  they  call  it  ? 
— compromised.  Of  course,  therefore,  I'm  young 
enough  to  marry.  It  will  make  no  difference  with 
you ;  you'll  stay  with  me  all  the  same.  Who  cares, 
after  all,  what  I  do?  No  one  but  Eustace,  and  he 
will  thank  me  for  giving  him  such  a  father.  Ah, 
I  shall  do  well  by  my  boy!"  she  cried,  clasping  her 
hands  with  ecstacy.  "I  shall  do  better  than  he 
knows.  My  property,  it  appears,  is  dreadfully  en 
tangled.  Mr.  Garnyer  did  as  he  pleased  with  it; 
I  was  given  to  him  with  my  hands  tied.  Mr.  Cope 
has  been  looking  into  it,  and  he  tells  me  that  it  will 
be  a  long  labor  to  restore  order.  I  have  been  living 
all  these  years  at  the  mercy  of  unprincipled  strangers. 
But  now  I  have  given  up  everything  to  Mr.  Cope. 
He'll  drive  the  money-changers  from  the  temple! 
It's  a  small  reward  to  marry  him.  Eustace  has  no 
head  for  money  matters;  he  only  knows  how  to 
spend.  For  years  now  he  needn't  think  of  them. 
Mr.  Cope  is  our  providence.  Don't  be  afraid; 
Eustace  won't  blaspheme!  and  at  last  he'll  have  a 
companion — the  best,  the  wisest,  the  kindest.  You 
know  how  he  used  to  long  for  one — how  tired  he 
was  of  me  and  you.  It  will  be  a  new  life.  Oh,  I'm 
a  happy  mother — at  last — at  last!  Don't  look 
at  me  so  hard;  I'm  a  blushing  bride,  remember. 
Smile,  laugh,  kiss  me.  There !  You're  a  good 
creature.  I  shall  make  my  boy  a  present — the  hand- 


38 Master  Eustace 

somest  that  ever  was  made !  Poor  Mr.  Cope !  I'm 
happier  than  he.  I  have  had  my  boy  all  these  years, 
and  he  has  had  none.  He  has  the  heart  of  a  father. 
He  has  longed  for  a  son.  Do  you  know,"  she  added 
with  a  strange  deepening  of  her  smile,  "that  I  think 
he  marries  me  as  much  for  my  son's  sake  as  for 
my  own?  He  marries  me  at  all  events,  boy  and 
all."  This  speech  was  uttered  with  a  forced  and 
hurried  animation  which  betrayed  the  effort  to  cheat 
herself  into  pure  enthusiasm.  The  matter  was  not 
quite  so  simple  as  she  tried  to  believe.  Nevertheless, 
I  was  deeply  pleased,  and  I  kissed  her  in  genuine 
sympathy.  The  more  I  thought  of  it  the  better  I 
liked  the  marriage.  It  relieved  me  personally  of  a 
burdensome  sense  of  ineffectual  care,  and  it  filled 
out  solidly  a  kind  of  defenceless  breach  which  had 
always  existed  on  the  worldly  face  of  Mrs.  Garn- 
yer's  position.  Moreover,  it  promised  to  be  full  of 
wholesome  profit  for  Eustace.  It  was  a  pity  that 
Eustace  had  but  a  slender  relish  for  wholesome  profit. 
I  ventured  to  hope,  however,  that  his  high  esteem 
for  his  father's  memory  had  been,  at  bottom,  the 
expression  of  a  need  for  counsel  and  support,  and 
of  a  capacity  to  grant  respect  if  there  should  be 
something  of  inspiration  in  it.  Yet  I  took  the 
liberty  of  suggesting  to  Mrs.  Garnyer  that  she  per 
haps  counted  too  implicitly  on  her  son's  concurrence ; 
that  he  was  always  in  opposition;  that  a  margin 


Master  Eustace 39 

should* be  left  for  his  possible  jealousy.  Of  course 
I  was  called  a  suspicious  wretch  for  my  pains. 

"For  what  do  you  take  him?"  she  cried.  "He'll 
thank  me  on  his  knees.  I  shall  place  them  face  to 
face.  Eustace  has  instinct!  A  word  to  the  wise, 
says  the  proverb.  I  know  what  I'm  about." 

She  knew  it,  I  think,  hardly  as  well  as  she  de 
clared.  I  had  deemed  it  my  duty  to  make  a  modest 
little  speech  of  congratulation  to  the  bridegroom 
elect.  He  blushed — somewhat  to  my  surprise — but 
he  answered  me  with  a  grave,  grateful  bow.  He 
was  preoccupied;  Mrs.  Garnyer  was  of  a  dozen  dif 
ferent  minds  about  her  wedding-day.  I  had  taken 
for  granted  that  they  would  wait  for  Eustace's 
return;  but  I  was  somewhat  startled  on  learning 
that  Mr.  Cope  disapproved  of  further  delay.  They 
had  waited  twenty  years!  Mrs.  Garnyer  told  me 
that  she  had  not  announced  the  news  to  Eustace. 
She  wished  it  to  be  a  "surprise."  She  seemed,  how 
ever,  not  altogether  to  believe  in  her  surprise.  Poor 
lady!  she  had  made  herself  a  restless  couch.  One 
evening,  coming  into  the  library,  I  found  Mr.  Cope 
pleading  his  cause.  For  the  first  time  I  saw  him 
excited.  This  hint  of  autumnal  ardor  was  very  be 
coming.  He  turned  appealingly  to  me.  "You  have 
great  authority  with  this  lady,"  he  said.  "Plead  my 
case.  Are  we  people  to  care  for  Mrs.  Grundy? 
Has  she  been  so  very  civil  to  us?  We  don't  marry 


40 Master  Eustace 

to  please  her.  I  don't  see  why  she  should  arrange 
the  wedding.  Mrs.  Garnyer  has  no  trousseau  to 
buy,  no  cards  to  send.  Indeed,  I  think  any  more 
airs  and  graces  are  rather  ridiculous.  They  don't 
belong  to  our  years.  There's  little  Master  Grundy, 
I  know,"  he  went  on,  smiling — "a  most  honorable 
youth!  But  I'll  take  charge  of  him.  I  should  like 
vastly,  of  course,  to  have  him  at  the  wedding;  but 
one  of  these  days  I  shall  make  up  for  the  breach 
of  ceremony  by  punctually  attending  his  own."  It 
was  only  an  hour  before  this,  as  it  happened,  that 
I  had  received  Eustace's  answer  to  my  letter.  It 
was  brief  and  hasty,  but  he  had  found  time  to  insert 
some  such  words  as  this :  "I  don't  at  all  thank  you 
for  your  news  of  Mr.  Cope.  I  knew  that  my  mother 
only  wanted  a  chance  to  forget  me  and  console  her 
self,  as  they  say  in  France.  Demonstrative  mothers 
always  do.  I'm  like  Hamlet — I  don't  approve  of 
mothers  consoling  themselves.  Mr.  Cope  may  be 
an  excellent  fellow — I've  no  doubt  he  is;  but  I  do 
hope  he  will  have  made  his  visit  by  the  time  I  get 
back.  The  house  isn't  large  enough  for  both  of  us. 
You'll  find  me  a  bigger  man  than  when  I  left  home. 
I  give  you  warning.  I've  got  a  roaring  black  mous 
tache,  and  I'm  proportionately  fiercer."  I  said  noth 
ing  about  this  letter.  A  week  later  they  were  mar 
ried.  The  time  will  always  be  memorable  to  me, 
apart  from  this  matter  of  my  story,  from  the 


.  Master  Eustace  41 

intense  and  overwhelming  heat  which  then  pre 
vailed.  It  had  lasted  several  days  when  the  wedding 
took  place ;  it  bade  fair  to  continue  unbroken.  The 
ceremony  was  performed  by  the  little  old  Episcopal 
clergyman  whose  ministrations  Mrs.  Garnyer  had 
regularly  attended,  and  who  had  always  given  her 
a  vague  parochial  countenance.  His  sister,  a  mature 
spinster  who  wore  her  hair  cut  short,  and  called 
herself  "strong-minded,"  and,  thus  qualified,  had 
made  overtures  to  Mrs.  Garnyer — this  lady  and  my 
self  were  the  only  witnesses.  The  marriage  had 
nothing  of  a  festive  air;  it  seemed  a  grave  sacrifice 
to  the  unknown  god.  Mrs.  Garnyer  was  very  much 
oppressed  by  the  heat;  in  the  vestibule,  on  leaving 
the  church,  she  fainted.  They  had  arranged  to  go 
for  a  week  to  the  seaside,  to  a  place  they  had  known 
of  old.  When  she  had  revived  we  placed  her  in 
the  carriage,  and  they  immediately  started.  I,  of 
course,  remained  in  charge  of  the  empty  house, 
vastly  envying  them  their  seaside  breezes. 

On  the  morning  after  the  wedding,  sitting  alone 
in  the  darkened  library,  I  heard  a  rapid  tread  in 
the  hall.  My  first  thought  of  course  was  of  burglars 
— my  second  of  Eustace.  In  a  moment  he  came 
striding  into  the  room.  His  step,  his  glance,  his 
whole  outline  foretold  trouble.  He  was  amazingly 
changed,  and  all  for  the  better.  He  seemed  taller, 
older,  manlier.  He  was  bronzed  by  travel  and 


42      Master  Eustace 

dressed  with  great  splendor.  The  moustache  he  had 
mentioned,  though  but  a  slender  thing  as  yet,  gave 
him,  to  my  eye,  a  formidable  foreign  look.  He  gave 
me  no  greeting. 

"Where's  my  mother?"  he  cried. 

My  heart  rose  to  my  throat;  his  tone  seemed  to 
put  us  horribly  in  the  wrong.  "She's  away — for  a 
day,"  I  said.  "But  you" — and  I  took  his  hand — 
"pray,  where  have  you  dropped  from?" 

"From  New  York,  from  shipboard,  from  South 
ampton.  Is  this  the  way  my  mother  receives  me?" 

"Why,  she  never  dreamed  you  were  coming." 

"She  got  no  letter?     I  wrote  from  New  York." 

"Your  letter  never  came.  She  left  town  yester 
day,  for  a  week." 

He  looked  at  me  hard.     "How  comes  it  you're , 
not  with  her?" 

"I  am  not  needed.     She  has — she  has "     But 

I  faltered. 

"Say  it — say  it !"  he  cried ;  and  he  stamped  his 
foot.  "She  has  a  companion." 

"Mr.  Cope  went  with  her,"  I  said,  in  a  still,  small 
voice.  I  was  ashamed  of  my  tremor,  I  was  out 
raged  by  his  imperious  manner,  but  the  thought  of 
worse  to  come  unnerved  me. 

"Mr.  Cope — ah!"  he  answered,  with  an  indefin 
able  accent.  He  looked  about  the  room  with  a  kind 
of  hungry  desire  to  detect  some  invidious  difference 


Master  Eustace 43 

as  a  trace  of  Mr.  Cope's  passage.  Then  flinging 
himself  into  a  chair,  "What  infernal  heat !"  he  went 
on.  "What  a  hideous  climate  you've  got  here !  Do 
bring  me  a  glass  of  water." 

I  brought  him  his  glass,  and  stood  before  him  as 
he  quickly  drank  it.  "Don't  think  you're  not  wel 
come,"  I  ventured  to  say,  "if  I  ask  what  has  brought 
you  home  so  suddenly." 

He  gave  me  another  hard  look  over  the  top  of 
his  glass.  "A  suspicion.  It's  none  too  soon.  Tell 
me  what  is  going  on  between  my  mother  and  Mr. 
Cope." 

"Eustace,"  I  said,  "before  I  answer  you,  let  me 
remind  you  of  the  respect  which  under  all  circum 
stances  you  owe  your  mother." 

He  sprang  from  his  chair.  "Respect !  I'm  right, 
then.  They  mean  to  marry !  Speak !"  And  as  I 
hesitated,  "You  needn't  speak,"  he  cried.  "I  see  it 
in  your  face.  Thank  God  I'm  here !" 

His  violence  aroused  me.  "If  you  have  a  will 
to  enforce  in  the  matter,"  I  said,  "you  are  indeed 
none  too  soon.  You're  too  late.  Your  mother  is 
married."  I  spoke  passionately,  but  in  a  moment 
I  repented  of  my  words. 

"MARRIED!"  the  poor  boy  shouted.  "Married, 
you  say !"  He  turned  deadly  pale  and  stood  staring 
at  me  with  his  mouth  wide  open.  Then,  trembling 
in  all  his  limbs,  he  dropped  into  a  chair.  For  some 


44 Master  Eustace 

moments  he  was  silent,  gazing  at  me  with  fierce 
stupefaction,  overwhelmed  by  the  treachery  of  fate. 
"Married!"  he  went  on.  "When,  where,  how? 
Without  me — without  notice — without  shame !  And 
you  stood  and  watched  it,  as  you  stand  and  tell 
me  now!  I  called  you  friend!"  he  cried,  with  the 
bitterest  reproach.  "But  if  my  mother  betrays  me, 
what  can  I  expect  of  you?  Married !"  he  repeated. 
"Is  the  devil  in  it?  I'll  unmarry  her!  When — 
when — when?"  And  he  seized  me  by  the  arm. 
"Yesterday,  Eustace.  I  entreat  you  to  be  calm/' 
"Calm  ?  Is  it  a  case  for  calmness  ?  She  was  calm 
enough — that  she  couldn't  wait  for  her  son!"  He 
flung  aside  the  hand  I  had  laid  upon  his  to  soothe 
him,  and  began  a  furious  march  about  the  room. 
"What  has  come  to  her?  Is  she  mad  ?  Has  she  lost 
her  head,  her  heart,  her  memory — all  that  made  her 
mine?  You're  joking — come,  it's  a  horrible 
dream?"  And  he  stopped  before  me,  glaring 
through  fiery  tears.  "Did  she  hope  to  keep  it  a 
secret?  Did  she  hope  to  hide  away  her  husband  in 
a  cupboard?  Her  husband!  And  I — I — I — what 
has  she  done  with  me?  Where  am  I  in  this  devil's 
game?  Standing  here  crying  like  a  schoolboy  for 
a  cut  finger — for  the  bitterest  of  disappointments! 
She  has  blighted  my  life — she  has  blasted  my  rights. 
She  has  insulted  me — dishonored  me.  Am  I  a  man 
to  treat  in  that  fashion?  Am  I  a  man  to  be  made 


Master  Eustace 45 

light  of?  Brought  up  as  a  flower  and  trampled  as 
a  weed!  Bound  in  cotton  and  steeped  in  vitriol! 
You  needn't  speak" — I  had  tried,  for  pity,  to  remon 
strate.  "You  can  say  nothing  but  bald  folly. 
There's  nothing  to  be  said  but  this — that  I'm  in 
sulted.  Do  you  understand?"  He  uttered  the  word 
with  a  concentrated  agony  of  vanity.  "I  guessed 
it  from  the  first.  I  knew  it  was  coming.  Mr.  Cope 
— Mr.  Cope — always  Mr.  Cope.  It  poisoned  my 
journey — it  poisoned  my  pleasure — it  poisoned 
Italy.  You  don't  know  what  that  means.  But  what 
matter,  so  long  as  it  has  poisoned  my  home  ?  I  held 
my  tongue — I  swallowed  my  rage;  I  was  patient, 
I  was  gentle,  I  forbore.  And  for  this!  I  could 
have  damned  him  with  a  word!  At  the  seaside, 
hey?  Enjoying  the  breezes — splashing  in  the  surf 
— picking  up  shells.  It's  idyllic,  it's  ideal — great 
heavens,  it's  fabulous,  it's  monstrous!  It's  well 
she's  not  here.  I  don't  answer  for  myself.  Yes, 
madam,  stare,  stare,  wring  your  hands!  You  see 
an  angry  man,  an  outraged  man,  but  a  man,  mind 
you !  He  means  to  act  as  one." 

This  sweeping  torrent  of  unreason  I  had  vainly 
endeavored  to  arrest.  He  pushed  me  aside,  strode 
out  of  the  room,  and  went  bounding  upstairs  to  his 
own  chamber,  where  I  heard  him  close  the  door 
with  a  terrible  bang  and  turn  the  key.  My  hope 
was  that  his  passion  would  expend  itself  in  this  first 


46 Master  Eustace 

explosion ;  I  was  glad  to  bear  the  brunt  of  it.  But 
I  deemed  it  my  duty  to  communicate  with  his 
mother.  I  wrote  her  a  hurried  line:  "Eustace  is 
back — very  ill.  Come  home."  This  I  intrusted  to 
the  coachman,  with  injunctions  to  carry  it  in  per 
son  to  the  place  of  her  sojourn.  I  believed  that  if 
she  started  immediately  on  the  receipt  of  it,  she 
might  reach  home  late  at  night.  Those  were  days 
of  private  conveyances.  Meanwhile  I  did  my  best 
to  pacify  the  poor  young  man.  There  was  some 
thing  terrible  and  portentous  in  his  rage ;  he  seemed 
absolutely  rabid.  This  was  the  sweet  compliance, 
the  fond  assent,  on  which  his  mother  had  counted ; 
this  was  the  "surprise" !  I  went  repeatedly  to  his 
chamber  door  with  soft  speeches  and  urgent  prayers 
and  offers  of  luncheon,  of  wine,  of  vague  womanly 
comfort.  But  there  came  no  answer  but  shouts  and 
imprecations,  and  finally  a  sullen  silence.  Late  in 
the  day  I  heard  him  from  the  window  order  the 
gardener  to  saddle  his  horse;  and  in  a  short  time 
he  came  stamping  downstairs,  booted  and  spurred, 
pale,  dishevelled,  with  bloodshot  eyes,  "Where  are 
you  going,"  I  said,  "in  this  awful  heat?" 

"To  ride — ride — ride  myself  cool!"  he  cried. 
"There's  nothing  so  hot  as  my  rage!"  And  in  a 
moment  he  was  in  the  saddle  and  bounding  out  of 
the  gate.  I  went  up  to  his  room.  It's  wild  disorder 
bore  vivid  evidence  of  the  tumult  of  his  temper.  A 


Master  Eustace  47 

dozen  things  were  strewn  broken  on  the  floor;  old 
letters  were  lying  crumpled  and  torn;  I  was  sick 
ened  by  the  sight  of  a  pearl  necklace,  snatched  from 
his  gaping  valise,  and  evidently  purchased  as  a 
present  to  his  mother,  ground  into  fragments  on  the 
carpet  as  if  by  his  boot-heels.  His  father's  relics 
were  standing  in  a  row  untouched  on  the  mantel 
shelf,  save  for  a  couple  of  pistols  mounted  with  his 
initials  in  silver,  which  were  tossed  upon  the  table. 
I  made  a  brave  effort  to  thrust  them  into  a  drawer 
and  turn  the  key,  but  to  my  eternal  regret  I  was 
afraid  to  touch  them.  Evening  descended  and  wore 
away ;  but  neither  Eustace  nor  his  mother  returned. 
I  sat  gloomily  enough  on  the  verandah,  listening  for 
wheels  or  hoofs.  Toward  midnight  a  carriage 
rattled  over  the  gravel;  my  friend  descended  with 
her  husband  at  the  door.  She  fluttered  into  my  arms 
with  a  kind  of  shrinking  yet  impetuous  dread. 
"Where  is  he — how  is  he?"  she  cried. 

I  was  spared  the  pain  of  answering,  for  at  the 
same  moment  I  heard  Eustace's  horse  clatter  into 
the  stable-yard.  He  had  rapidly  dismounted  and 
passed  into  the  house  by  one  of  the  side  windows, 
which  opened  from  the  piazza  into  the  drawing- 
room.  There  the  lamps  \vere  lighted.  I  led  in  my 
companions.  Eustace  had  crossed  the  threshold  of 
the  window ;  the  lamp-light  fell  upon  him,  relieving 
him  against  the  darkness.  His  mother  with  a  shriek 


48 Master  Eustace 

flung  herself  toward  him,  but  in  an  instant  with  a 
deeper  cry  she  stopped  short,  pressing  her  hand  to 
her  heart.  He  had  raised  his  hand,  and,  with  a 
gesture  which  had  all  the  spiritual  force  of  a  blow, 
he  had  cast  her  off.  "Ah,  my  son,  my  son!"  she 
cried  with  a  piteous  moan,  and  looking  round  at  us 
in  wild  bewilderment. 

"I'm  not  your  son!"  said  the  boy  in  a  voice  half 
stifled  with  passion.  "I  give  you  up!  You're  not 
my  mother!  Don't  touch  me!  You've  cheated  me 
—you've  betrayed  me — you've  insulted  me!"  In 
this  mad  peal  of  imprecations,  it  was  still  the  note 
of  vanity  which  rang  clearest. 

I  looked  at  Mr.  Cope.  He  was  deadly  pale.  He 
had  seen  the  lad's  gesture;  he  was  unable  to  hear 
his  words.  He  sat  down  in  the  nearest  chair  and 
eyed  him  wonderingly.  I  hurried  to  his  poor  wife's 
relief.  She  seemed  smitten  with  a  sudden  tremor, 
a  deadly  chill.  She  clasped  her  hands,  but  she  could 
barely  find  her  voice.  "Eustace — my  boy — my 
darling — my  own — do  you  know  what  you  say? 
Listen,  listen,  Eustace.  It's  all  for  you — that  you 
should  love  me  more.  I've  done  my  best.  I  seem 
to  have  been  hasty,  but  hasty  to  do  for  you — to  do 

for  you "  Her  strength  deserted  her;  she  burst 

into  tears.  "He  curses  me— he  denies  me!"  she 
cried.  "He  has  killed  me!" 

"Cry,  cry!"  Eustace  retorted;  "cry  as  I've  been 


Master  Eustace 49 

crying!  But  don't  be  falser  than  you  have  been. 
That  you  couldn't  even  wait !  And  you  prate  of  my 
happiness !  Is  my  happiness  in  a  broken  home — in 
a  disputed  heart — in  a  bullying  stepfather!  You've 
chosen  him  big  and  strong!  Cry  your  eyes  out — 
you're  no  mother  of  mine." 

"He's  killing  me — he's  killing  me,"  groaned  his 
mother.  "O  Heaven!  if  I  dared  to  speak,  I  should 
kill  him!"  She  turned  to  her  husband.  "Go  to 
him — go  to  him !"  she  cried.  "He's  ill,  he's  mad — 
he  doesn't  know  what  he  says.  Take  his  hand  in 
yours — look  at  him,  soothe  him,  heal  him.  It's  the 
hot  weather,"  she  rambled  on.  "Let  him  feel  your 
touch !  Eustace,  Eustace,  be  healed !" 

Poor  Mr.  Cope  had  risen  to  his  feet,  passing  his 
handkerchief  over  his  forehead,  on  which  the  per 
spiration  stood  in  great  drops.  He  went  slowly 
toward  the  young  man,  bending  his  eyes  on  him 
half  in  entreaty,  half  in  command.  Before  him  he 
stopped  and  frankly  held  out  his  hand.  Eustace 
eyed  him  defiantly  from  head  to  foot — him  and  his 
proffered  friendship,  enforced  as  it  was  by  a  gaze 
of  the  most  benignant  authority.  Then  pushing  his 
hand  savagely  down,  "Hypocrite!"  he  roared  close 
to  his  face — "can  you  hear  that?"  and  marched 
bravely  out  of  the  room.  Mr.  Cope  shook  his  head 
with  a  world  of  tragic  meaning,  and  for  an  instant 
exchanged  with  his  wife  a  long  look  brimming  with 


J30 Master  Eustace 

anguish.  She  fell  upon  his  neck  shaken  with  re 
sounding  sobs.  But  soon  recovering  herself,  "Go 
to  him,"  she  urged,  "follow  him;  say  everything, 
spare  nothing.  No  matter  for  me;  I've  got  my 
blow." 

I  helped  her  up  to  her  room.  Her  strength  had 
completely  left  her;  she  but  half  undressed  and  let 
me  lay  her  on  her  bed.  She  was  in  a  state  of  the 
intensest  excitement.  Every  nerve  in  her  body  was 
thrilling  and  ringing.  She  kept  murmuring  to  her 
self,  with  a  kind  of  heart-breaking  incoherency. 
"Nothing  can  hurt  me  now ;  I  needn't  be  spared. 
Nothing  can  disgrace  me — or  grace  me.  I've  got 
my  blow.  It's  my  fault — all,  all,  all !  I  heaped  up 
folly  on  folly  and  weakness  on  weakness.  My 
heart's  broken ;  it  will  never  serve  again.  You  have 
been  right,  my  dear — I  perverted  him,  I  taught  him 
to  strike.  Oh,  what  a  blow !  He's  hard — he's  hard. 
He's  cruel.  He  has  no  heart.  He's  blind  with  van 
ity  and  egotism.  But  it  matters  little  now ;  I  shan't 
live  to  suffer.  I've  suffered  enough.  I'm  dying, 
my  friend,  I'm  dying." 

In  this  broken  strain  the  poor  lady  poured  out 
the  bitterness  of  her  grief.  I  used  every  art  to  soothe 
and  console  her,  but  I  felt  that  the  tenderest  spot  in 
her  gentle  heart  had  received  an  irreparable  bruise. 
"I  don't  want  to  live,"  she  murmured.  "I'm  disil 
lusioned.  It  could  never  be  patched  up ;  we  should 


Master  Eustace 51 

never  be  the  same.  He  has  shown  the  bottom  of  his 
soul.  It's  bad." 

In  spite  of  my  efforts  to  restore  her  to  calmness, 
she  became — not  more  excited,  for  her  strength 
seemed  to  be  ebbing  and  her  voice  was  low — but 
more  painfully  and  incoherently  garrulous.  Never 
theless,  from  her  distressing  murmur  I  gathered  the 
glimmer  of  a  meaning.  She  seemed  to  wish  to  make 
a  kind  of  supreme  confession.  I  sat  on  the  cope 
of  her  bed,  with  her  hand  in  mine.  From  time  to 
time,  above  her  loud  whispers,  I  heard  the  sound  of 
the  two  gentlemen's  voices.  Adjoining  her  chamber 
was  a  large  dressing-room ;  beyond  this  was 
Eustace's  apartment.  The  three  rooms  opened  upon 
a  long  uncovered  balcony. 

Mr.  Cope  had  followed  the  young  man  to  his  own 
chamber,  and  was  addressing  him  in  a  low,  steady 
voice.  Eustace  apparently  was  silent ;  but  there  was 
something  sullen  and  portentous  to  my  ear  in  this 
unnatural  absence  of  response. 

"What  have  you  thought  of  me,  my  friend,  all 
these  years?"  his  mother  asked.  "Have  I  seemed 
to  you  like  other  women  ?  I  haven't  been  like  others. 
I  have  tried  to  be  so — and  you  see — you  see!  I^et 
me  tell  you.  It  don't  matter  whether  you  despise 
me — I  shan't  know  it.  These  are  my  last  words; 
let  them  be  frank." 

They  were  not,  however,  so  frank  as  she  intended. 


52 Master  Eustace 

She  seemed  to  lose  herself  in  a  dim  wilderness  of 
memories ;  her  faculty  wandered,  faltered,  stumbled. 
Not  from  her  words — they  were  ambiguous — but 
from  her  silence  and  from  the  rebound  of  my  own 
impassioned  sympathy,  as  it  were,  I  guessed  the 
truth.  It  blossomed  into  being  vivid  and  distinct; 
it  exhaled  a  long  illuminating  glow  upon  the  past — 
a  lurid  light  upon  the  present.  Strange  it  seemed 
now  that  my  suspicions  had  been  so  late  to  bear 
fruit;  but  our  imagination  is  always  too  timid. 
Now  all  things  were  clear!  Heaven  knows  that  in 
this  unpitying  light  I  felt  no  contempt  for  the  poor 
woman  who  lay  before  me,  panting  from  her  vio 
lated  soul. 

Poor  victims  of  destiny!  If  I  could  only  bring 
them  to  terms !  For  the  moment,  however,  the  un 
happy  mother  and  wife  demanded  all  my  atten 
tion.  I  left  her  and  passed  along  the  balcony,  in 
tending  to  summon  her  husband.  The  light  in 
Eustace's  room  showed  me  the  young  man  and  his 
companion.  They  sat  facing  each  other  in  momen 
tary  silence.  Mr.  Cope's  two  hands  were  on  his 
knees,  his  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  carpet,  his  teeth 
were  set — as  if,  baffled,  irate,  desperate,  he  were  pre 
paring  to  play  his  last  card.  Eustace  was  looking 
at  him  hard,  with  a  terribly  untender  gaze.  It  made 
me  sick.  I  was  on  f  ''e  point  of  rushing  in  and  adjur 
ing  Eustace  by  the  truth.  But  suddenly  Mr.  Cope 


Master  'Eustace  53 

raised  his  eyes  and  exchanged  with  the  boy  a  look 
with  which  he  seemed  to  read  his  very  soul.  He 
waved  his  hand  in  the  air  as  if  to  dismiss  fond 
patience. 

"If  you  were  to  see  yourself  as  I  see  you,"  he 
said,  "you  would  be  vastly  amazed ;  you  would  know 
your  absurd  appearance.  Young  as  you  are,  you 
are  rotten  with  arrogance  and  pride.  What  would 
you  say  if  I  were  to  tell  you  that,  least  of  men,  you 
have  reason  to  be  proud?  Your  stable  boy  there 
has  more.  There's  a  leak  in  your  vanity; 
there's  a  blot  on  your  escutcheon!  You  force  me 
to  strong  measures.  Let  me  tell  you,  in  the  teeth 
of  your  monstrous  egotism,  what  you  are.  You're 
a " 

I  knew  what  was  coming,  but  I  hadn't  the  heart 
to  hear  it.  The  word,  ringing  out,  overtook  my  ear 
as  I  hurried  back  to  Mrs.  Cope.  It  was  followed 
by  a  loud,  incoherent  cry,  the  sound,  prolonged  for 
some  moments,  of  a  scuffle,  and  then  the  report  of 
a  pistol.  This  was  lost  in  the  noise  of  crashing 
glass.  Mrs.  Cope  rose  erect  in  bed  and  shrieked 
aloud,  "He  has  killed  him — and  me."  I  caught  her 
in  my  arms ;  she  breathed  her  last.  I  laid  her  gently 
on  the  bed  and  made  my  trembling  way,  by  the  bal 
cony,  to  Eustace's  room.  The  first  glance  reassured 
me.  Neither  of  the  men  was  visibly  injured;  the 
pistol  lay  smoking  on  the  floor.  Eustace  had  sunk 


54 Master  Eustace 

into  a  chair  with  his  head  buried  in  his  hands.  I 
saw  his  face  crimson  through  his  fingers. 

"It's  not  murder,"  Mr.  Cope  said  to  me  as  I 
crossed  the  threshold,  "but  it  has  just  missed  being 
suicide.  It  has  been  fatal  only  to  the  looking-glass." 
The  mirror  was  shivered. 

"It  is  murder,"  I  answered,  seizing  Eustace  by  the 
arm  and  forcing  him  to  rise.  "You  have  killed  your 
mother.  This  is  your  father!" 

My  friend  paused  and  looked  at  me  with  a 
triumphant  air,  as  if  she  was  very  proud  of  her 
effect.  Of  course  I  had  foreseen  it  half  an  hour 
ago.  "What  a  dismal  tale,"  I  said.  "But  it's  inter 
esting.  Of  course  Mrs.  Cope  recovered." 

She  was  silent  an  instant.  "You're  like  me,"  she 
answered.  "Your  imagination  is  timid." 

"I  confess,"  I  rejoined,  "I  am  rather  at  a  loss 
how  to  dispose  of  our  friend  Eustace.  I  don't  see 
how  the  two  could  very  well  shake  hands — nor  yet 
how  they  couldn't." 

"They  did  once — and  but  once.  They  were  for 
years,  each  in  his  way,  lonely  men.  They  were 
never  reconciled.  The  trench  had  been  dug  too 
deep.  Even  the  poor  lady  buried  there  didn't  avail 
to  fill  it  up.  Yet  the  son  was  forgiven — the  father 
never!" 


LONGSTAFF'S    MARRIAGE 


LONGSTAFF'S    MARRIAGE 

FORTY  years  ago  that  traditional  and  anec- 
dotical  liberty  of  young  American  women, 
which  is  notoriously  the  envy  of  their  for 
eign  sisters,  was  not  so  firmly  established  as  at  the 
present  hour;  yet  it  was  sufficiently  recognized  to 
make  it  no  scandal  thaj:  so  pretty  a  girl  as  Diana 
Belfield  should  start  for  the  grand  tour  of  Europe 
under  no  more  imposing  protection  than  that  of  her 
cousin  and  intimate  friend,  Miss  Agatha  Gosling. 
She  had,  from  the  European  point  of  view,  beauty 
enough  to  make  her  enterprise  perilous — the  beauty 
foreshadowed  in  her  name,  which  might  have  been 
given  her  in  prevision  of  her  tall,  light  figure,  her 
nobly  poised  head,  weighted  with  a  coronal  of  au 
burn  braids,  her  frank  quick  glance  and  her  rapid 
gliding  step.  She  used  often  to  walk  about  with  a 
big  dog  who  had  the  habit  of  bounding  at  her  side 
and  tossing  his  head  against  her  outstretched  hand ; 
and  she  had,  moreover,  a  trick  of  carrying  her  long 

57 


58 Master  Eustace 

parasol  always  folded,  for  she  was  not  afraid  of  the 
sunshine,  across  her  shoulder,  in  the  fashion  of  a 
soldier's  musket  on  a  march.  Thus  equipped,  she 
looked  wonderfully  like  that  charming  antique 
statue  of  the  goddess  of  the  chase  which  we  en 
counter  in  various  replicas  in  half  the  museums  of 
the  world.  You  half  expected  to  see  a  sandal-shod 
foot  peep  out  beneath  her  fluttering  robe.  It  was 
with  this  tread  of  the  wakeful  huntress  that  she 
stepped  upon  the  old  sailing-vessel  which  was  to 
bear  her  to  the  lands  she  had  dreamed  of.  Behind 
her,  with  a  great  many  shawls  and  satchels,  came 
her  little  kinswoman,  with  quite  another  demarche. 
Agatha  Gosling  was  not  a  beauty  but  she  was  the 
most  judicious  and  most  devoted  of  companions. 
These  two  persons  had  come  together  on  the  death 
of  Diana's  mother  and  the  taking  possession  by  the 
young  lady  of  her  patrimony.  The  first  use  she 
made  of  her  inheritance  was  to  divide  it  with 
Agatha,  who  had  not  a  penny  of  her  own ;  the  next 
was  to  purchase  a  letter  of  credit  upon  a  European 
banker.  The  cousins  had  contracted  a  classical 
friendship, — they  had  determined  to  be  sufficient  to 
each  other,  like  the  Ladies  of  Llangollen.  Only, 
though  their  friendship  was  exclusive,  their  Llan 
gollen  was  to  be  comprehensive.  They  would  tread 
the  pavements  of  historic  cities  and  stand  in  the 
colored  light-shafts  of  Gothic  cathedrals,  wander  on 


Longstaff's  Marriage 59 

tinkling  mules  through  mountain-gorges  and  sit 
among  dark-eyed  peasants  by  southern  seas.  It  may 
seem  singular  that  a  beautiful  girl  with  a  pretty 
fortune  should  have  been  left  to  seek  the  supreme 
satisfaction  of  life  in  friendship  tempered  by  sight 
seeing;  but  Diana  herself  considered  this  pastime  no 
beggarly  alternative.  Though  she  never  told  it 
herself,  her  biographer  may  do  so ;  she  had  had,  in 
vulgar  parlance,  a  hundred  offers.  To  say  that  she 
had  declined  them  is  to  say  too  little ;  she  had  really 
scorned  them.  They  had  come  from  honorable  and 
amiable  men,  and  it  was  not  her  suitors  in  them 
selves  that  she  disrelished ;  it  was  simply  the  idea  of 
marrying.  She  found  it  insupportable :  a  fact  which 
completes  her  analogy  with  the  mythic  divinity  to 
whom  I  have  likened  her.  She  was  passionately 
single,  fiercely  virginal;  and  in  the  straight-glanc 
ing  gray  eyes  which  provoked  men  to  admire,  there 
was  a  certain  silvery  ray  which  forbade  them  to 
hope.  The  fabled  Diana  took  a  fancy  to  a  beauti 
ful  shepherd,  but  the  real  one  had  not  yet  found, 
sleeping  or  waking,  her  Endymion. 

Thanks  to  this  defensive  eyebeam,  the  dangerous 
side  of  our  heroine's  enterprise  was  slow  to  define 
itself;  thanks,  too,  to  the  exquisite  decency  of  her 
companion.  Agatha  Gosling  had  an  almost  Quaker 
ish  purity  and  dignity;  a  bristling  dragon  could  not 
have  been  a  better  safeguard  than  this  glossy,  gray- 


60 Master  Eustace 

breasted  dove.  Money,  too,  is  a  protection,  and 
Diana  had  enough  to  purchase  privacy.  She  trav 
eled  extensively,  and  saw  all  the  churches  and  pic 
tures,  the  castles  and  cottages  included  in  the  list 
which  had  been  drawn  up  by  the  two  friends  in 
evening  talks,  at  home,  between  two  wax  candles. 
In  the  evening  they  used  to  read  aloud  to  each  other 
from  "Corinne"  and  "Childe  Harold,"  and  they 
kept  a  diary  in  common,  at  which  they  "collabo 
rated,"  like  French  playwrights,  and  which  was 
studded  with  quotations  from  the  authors  I  have 
mentioned.  This  lasted  a  year,  at  the  end  of  which 
they  found  themselves  a  trifle  weary.  A  snug  post 
ing-carriage  was  a  delightful  habitation,  but  looking 
at  miles  of  pictures  was  very  fatiguing  to  the  back. 
Buying  souvenirs  and  trinkets  under  foreign  arcades 
was  a  most  absorbing  occupation;  but  inns  were 
dreadfully  apt  to  be  draughty,  and  bottles  of  hot 
water,  for  application  to  the  feet,  had  a  disagree 
able  way  of  growing  lukewarm.  For  these  and 
other  reasons  .our  heroines  determined  to  take  a 
winter's  rest,  and  for  this  purpose  they  betook  them 
selves  to  the  charming  town  of  Nice,  which  was 
then  but  in  the  infancy  of  its  fame.  It  was  simply 
one  of  the  hundred  hamlets  of  the  Riviera, — a  place 
where  the  blue  waves  broke  on  an  almost  empty 
strand,  and  the  olive-trees  sprouted  at  the  doors  of 
the  inns.  In  those  days  Nice  was  Italian,  and  the 


^ Longstaff's  Marriage 61 

"Promenade  des  Anglais"  existed  only  in  an  em 
bryonic  form.  Exist,  however,  it  did,  practically, 
and  British  invalids,  in  moderate  numbers,  might 
have  been  seen  taking  the  January  sunshine  beneath 
London  umbrellas,  before  the  many-twinkling  sea. 
Our  young  Americans  quietly  took  their  place  in 
this  harmless  society.  They  drove  along  the  coast, 
through  the  strange,  dark,  huddled  fishing- villages, 
and  they  rode  on  donkeys  among  the  bosky  hills. 
They  painted  in  water-colors  and  hired  a  piano; 
they  subscribed  to  the  circulating  library  and  took 
lessons  in  the  language  of  Silvio  Pellico  from  an 
old  lady  with  very  fine  eyes,  who  wore  an  enormous 
brooch  of  cracked  malachite,  and  gave  herself  out 
as  the  widow  of  a  Roman  exile. 

They  used  to  go  and  sit  by  the  sea,  each  provided 
with  a  volume  from  the  circulating  library ;  but  they 
never  did  much  with  their  books.  The  sunshine 
made  the  page  too  dazzling,  and  the  people  who 
strolled  up  and  down  before  them  were  more  enter 
taining  than  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  in  the  novels. 
^They  looked  at  them  constantly  from  under  their 
umbrellas ;  they  learned  to  know  them  all  by  sight. 
Many  of  their  fellow-visitors  were  invalids, — mild, 
slow-moving  consumptives.  But  that  women  enjoy 
the  exercise  of  pity,  I  should  have  said  that  these 
pale  promenaders  were  a  saddening  spectacle.  In 
several  of  them,  however,  our  friends  took  a  per- 


62  Master  Eustace 

sonal  interest ;  they  watched  them  from  day  to  day ; 
they  noticed  their  changing  color;  they  had  their 
ideas  about  who  was  getting  better  and  who  was 
getting  worse.  They  did  little,  however,  in  the  way 
of  making  acquaintances, — partly  because  con 
sumptive  people  are  no  great  talkers,  and  partly 
because  this  was  also  Diana's  disposition.  She  said 
to  her  friend  that  they  had  not  come  to  Europe 
to  pay  morning-calls;  they  had  left  their  best  bon 
nets  and  card-cases  behind  them.  At  the  bottom  of 
her  reserve  was  the  apprehension  that  she  should 
be  "admired ;"  which  was  not  fatuity,  but  simply  an 
inference  based  upon  uncomfortable  experience. 
She  had  seen  in  Europe,  for  the  first  time,  certain 
horrid  men, — polished  adventurers,  with  offensive 
looks  and  mercenary  thoughts ;  and  she  had  a  whole 
some  fear  that  one  of  these  gentlemen  might  ap 
proach  her  through  some  accidental  breach  in  her 
reserve.  Agatha  Gosling,  who  had  neither  in 
reminiscence  nor  in  prospect  the  same  reasons  for 
being  on  the  defensive,  would  have  been  glad  to 
extend  the  circle  of  her  intimacy,  and  would  even 
have  consented  to  put  on  a  best  bonnet  for  the  pur 
pose.  But  she  had  to  content  herself  with  an 
occasional  murmur  of  small  talk,  on  a  bench  before 
the  sea,  with  two  or  three  English  ladies  of  the 
botanizing  class;  jovial  little  spinsters  who  wore 
stout  boots,  gauntlets,  and  "uglies,"  and  in  pursuit 


Longstaff's  Marriage 63 

of  wayside  flowers  scrambled  into  places  where  the 
first-mentioned  articles  were  uncompromisingly 
visible.  For  the  rest,  Agatha  contented  herself  with 
spinning  suppositions  about  the  people  she  never 
spoke  to.  She  framed  a  great  deal  of  hypothetic 
gossip,  invented  theories  and  explanations, — gen 
erally  of  the  most  charitable  quality.  Her  com 
panion  took  no  part  in  these  harmless  devisings, 
except  to  listen  to  them  with  an  indolent  smile.  She 
seldom  honored  her  fellow-mortals  with  finding 
apologies  for  them,  and  if  they  wished  her  to  read 
their  history,  they  must  write  it  out  in  the  largest 
letters. 

There  was  one  person  at  Nice  upon  whose  biog 
raphy,  if  it  had  been  laid  before  her  in  this  fashion, 
she  probably  would  have  bestowed  a  certain  amount 
of  attention.  Agatha  had  noticed  the  gentleman 
first;  or  Agatha,  at  least,  had  first  spoken  of  him. 
He  was  young  and  he  looked  interesting;  Agatha 
had  indulged  in  a  good  deal  of  wondering  as  to 
whether  or  no  he  belonged  to  the  invalid  category. 
She  preferred  to  believe  that  one  of  his  lungs  was 
"affected" ;  it  certainly  made  him  more  interesting. 
He  used  to  stroll  about  by  himself  and  sit  for  a  long 
time  in  the  sun,  with  a  book  peeping  out  of  his 
pocket.  This  book  he  never  opened ;  he  was  always 
staring  at  the  sea.  I  say  always,  but  my  phrase 
demands  an  immediate  modification;  he  looked  at 


64 Master  Eustace 

the  sea  whenever  he  was  not  looking  at  Diana  Bel- 
field.  He  was  tall  and  fair,  slight,  and,  as.  Agatha 
Gosling  said,  aristocratic-looking.  He  dressed 
with  a  certain  careless  elegance,  which  Agatha 
deemed  picturesque ;  she  declared  one  day  that  he 
reminded  her  of  a  love-sick  prince.  She  learned 
eventually  from  one  of  the  botanizing  spinsters  that 
he  was  not  a  prince,  that  he  was  simply  an  English 
gentleman,  Mr.  Reginald  Longstaff.  There  re 
mained  the  possibility  that  he  was  love-sick;  but 
this  point  could  not  be  so  easily  settled.  Agatha's 
informant  had  assured  her,  however,  that  if  they 
were  not  princes,  the  Longstaffs,  who  came  from  a 
part  of  the  country  in  which  she  had  visited,  and 
owned  great  estates  there,  had  a  pedigree  which 
many  princes  might  envy.  It  was  one  of  the  oldest 
and  the  best  of  English  names;  they  were  one  of 
the  innumerable  untitled  country  families  who  held 
their  heads  as  high  as  the  highest.  This  poor  Mr. 
Longstaff  was  a  beautiful  specimen  of  a  young  Eng 
lish  gentleman;  he  looked  so  gentle,  yet  so  brave; 
so  modest,  yet  so  cultivated !  The  ladies  spoke  of 
him  habitually  as  "poor"  Mr.  Longstaff,  for  they 
now  took  for  granted  there  was  something  the 
matter  with  him.  At  last  Agatha  Gosling  discov 
ered  what  it  was,  and  made  a  solemn  proclamation 
of  the  same.  The  matter  with  poor  Mr.  Longstaff 
was  simply  that  he  was  in  love  with  Diana !  It  was 


Longstaff's  Marriage 65 

certainly  natural  to  suppose  he  was  in  love  with  some 
one,  and,  as  Agatha  said,  it  could  not  possibly  be 
with  herself.  Mr.  Longstaff  was  pale,  with 
crumpled  locks;  he  never  spoke  to  anyone;  he  was 
evidently  preoccupied,  and  this  mild,  candid  face 
was  a  sufficient  proof  that  the  weight  on  his  heart 
was  not  a  bad  conscience.  What  could  it  be,  then, 
but  an  unrequited  passion?  It  was,  however,  equally 
pertinent  to  inquire  why  Mr.  Longstaff  took  no  steps 
to  bring  about  a  requital. 

"Why  in  the  world  does  he  not  ask  to  be  intro 
duced  to  you?"  Agatha  Gosling  demanded  of  her 
companion. 

Diana  replied,  quite  without  eagerness,  that  it  was 
plainly  because  he  had  nothing  to  say  to  her,  and 
she  declared  with  a  trifle  more  emphasis  that  she 
was  incapable  of  furnishing  him  a  topic  of  con 
versation.  She  added  that  she  thought  they  had 
gossiped  enough  about  the  poor  man,  and  that  if 
by  any  chance  he  should  have  the  bad  taste  to  speak 
to  them,  she  should  certainly  go  away  and  leave 
him  alone  with  Miss  Gosling.  It  is  true,  however, 
that  at  an  earlier  period,  she  had  let  fall  the  remark 
that  he  was  quite  the  most  "distinguished"  person 
at  Nice;  and  afterward,  though,  she  was  never  the 
first  to  allude  to  him,  she  had  more  than  once  let 
her  companion  pursue  the  theme  for  some  time  with 
out  reminding  her  of  its  futility.  The  one  person  to 


66 Master  Eustace 

whom  Mr.  Longstaff  was  observed  to  speak  was  an 
elderly  man  of  foreign  aspect  who  approached  him 
occasionally  in  the  most  deferential  manner,  and 
whom  Agatha  Gosling  supposed  to  be  his  servant. 
This  individual  was  apparently  an  Italian;  he  had 
an  obsequious  attitude,  a  pair  of  grizzled  whiskers, 
an  insinuating  smile.  He  seemed  to  come  to  Mr. 
Longstaff  for  orders;  presently  he  went  away  to 
execute  them,  and  Agatha  noticed  that  on  retiring, 
he  always  managed  to  pass  in  front  of  her  com 
panion,  on  whom  he  fixed  his  respectful  but  pene 
trating  gaze.  "He  knows  the  secret,"  she  always 
said,  with  gentle  jocoseness ;  "he  knows  what  is  the 
matter  with  his  master  and  he  wants  to  see  whether 
he  approves  of  you.  Old  servants  never  want  their 
masters  to  marry,  and  I  think  this  worthy  man  is 
rather  afraid  of  you.  At  any  rate,  the  way  he  stares 
at  you  tells  the  whole  story/' 

"Everyone  stares  at  me!"  said  Diana,  wearily. 
"A  cat  may  look  at  a  king." 

As  the  weeks  went  by,  Agatha  Gosling  quite 
made  up  her  mind  that  it  was  Mr.  Longstaff's  lungs. 
The  poor  young  man's  invalid  character  was  now 
most  apparent;  he  could  hardly  hold  up  his  head 
or  drag  one  foot  after  the  other;  his  servant  was 
always  near  him  to  give  him  an  arm  or  to  hand  him 
an  extra  overcoat.  No  one,  indeed,  knew,  with 
certainty,  that  he  was  consumptive;  but  Agatha 


Longstaff's  Marriage  67 

agreed  with  the  lady  who  had  given  the  informa 
tion  about  his  pedigree,  that  this  fact  was  in  itself 
extremely  suspicious;  for,  as  the  little  English 
woman  forcibly  remarked,  unless  he  were  ill,  why 
should  he  make  such  a  mystery  of  it  ?  Consumption 
declaring  itself  in  a  young  man  of  family  and  for 
tune  was  particularly  sad;  such  people  had  often 
diplomatic  reasons  for  pretending  to  enjoy  excel 
lent  health.  It  kept  the  legacy-hunters  and  the 
hungry  next-of-kin  from  worrying  them  to  death. 
Agatha  observed  that  this  poor  gentleman's  last 
hours  seemed  likely  to  be  only  too  lonely.  She  felt 
very  much  like  offering  to  nurse  him;  for,  being 
no  relation,  he  could  not  accuse  her  of  mercenary 
motives.  From  time  to  time  he  got  up  from  the 
bench  where  he  habitually  sat,  and  strolled  slowly 
past  the  two  friends.  Every  time  that  he  came  near 
them,  Agatha  had  a  singular  feeling, — a  conviction 
that  now  he  was  really  going  to  speak  to  them,  in 
tones  of  the  most  solemn  courtesy.  She  could  not 
fancy  him  speaking  otherwise.  He  began,  at  a  dis 
tance,  by  fixing  his  grave,  soft  eyes  on  Diana,  and, 
as  he  advanced,  you  would  have  said  that  he  was 
coming  straight  up  to  her  with  some  tremulous 
compliment.  But  as  he  drew  nearer,  his  intentness 
seemed  to  falter;  he  strolled  more  slowly,  he  looked 
away  at  the  sea,  and  he  passed  in  front  of  her  with 
out  having  the  courage  to  let  his  eyes  rest  upon  her. 


68 Master  Eustace 

Then  he  passed  back  again  in  the  same  fashion, 
sank  down  upon  his  bench,  fatigued  apparently  by 
his  aimless  stroll,  and  fell  into  a  melancholy  reverie. 
To  enumerate  these  small  incidents  in  his  deport 
ment  is  to  give  it  a  melodramatic  cast  which  it  was 
far  from  possessing;  something  in  his  manner 
saved  it  from  the  shadow  of  impertinence,  and  it 
may  be  affirmed  that  not  a  single  idler  on  the  sunny 
shore  suspected  his  speechless  "attentions." 

"I  wonder  why  it  doesn't  annoy  us  more  that 
he  should  look  at  us  so  much/'  said  Agatha  Gos 
ling,  one  day. 

"That  who  should  look  at  us?"  asked  Diana,  not 
at  all  affectedly. 

Agatha  fixed  her  eyes  for  a  moment  on  her  friend, 
and  then  said  gently: 

"Mr.  Longstaff.  Now,  don't  say  'Who  is  Mr. 
LongstafT?'"  she  added. 

"I  have  got  to  learn,  really,"  said  Diana  "that 
the  person  you  appear  to  mean,  does  look  at  us.  I 
have  never  caught  him  in  the  act." 

"That  is  because  whenever  you  turn  your  eyes 
toward  him  he  looks  away.  He  is  afraid  to  meet 
them.  But  I  see  him." 

These  words  were  exchanged  one  day  as  the  two 
friends  sat  as  usual  before  the  twinkling  sea;  and, 
beyond  them,  as  usual,  lounged  Reginald  Long- 
staff.  Diana  bent  her  head  faintly  forward  and 


Longstaf's  Marriage 69 

glanced  toward  him.  He  was  looking  full  at  her 
and  their  eyes  met,  apparently  for  the  first  time. 
Diana  dropped  her  own  upon  her  book  again,  and 
then,  after  a  silence  of  some  moments,  "It  does 
annoy  me,"  she  said.  Presently  she  added  that  she 
would  go  home  and  write  a  letter,  and,  though  she 
had  never  taken  a  step  in  Europe  without  having 
Agatha  by  her  side,  Miss  Gosling  now  allowed  her 
to  depart  unattended.  "You  won't  mind  going 
alone?"  Agatha  had  asked.  "It  is  but  three  min 
utes,  you  know." 

Diana  replied  that  she  preferred  to  go  alone, 
and  she  moved  away,  with  her  parasol  over  her 
shoulder. 

Agatha  Gosling  had  a  particular  reason  for  this 
rupture  of  their  maidenly  custom.  She  felt  a  strong 
conviction  that  if  she  were  left  alone,  Mr.  Long- 
staff  would  come  and  speak  to  her  and  say  some 
thing  very  important,  and  she  deferred  to  this 
conviction  without  the  sense  of  doing  anything  im 
modest.  There  was  something  solemn  about  it;  it 
was  a  sort  of  presentiment;  but  it  did  not  frighten 
her;  it  only  made  her  feel  very  kind  and  appreci 
ative.  It  is  true  that  when  at  the  end  of  ten  minutes 
(they  had  seemed  rather  long),  she  saw  him  rise 
from  his  seat  and  slowly  come  toward  her,  she  was 
conscious  of  a  certain  trepidation.  Mr.  Longstaff 
drew  near;  at  last,  he  was  close  to  her;  he  stopped 


70 Master  Eustace 

and  stood  looking  at  her.  She  had  averted  her 
head,  so  as  not  to  appear  to  expect  him;  but  now 
she  looked  round  again,  and  he  very  gravely  lifted 
his  hat. 

"May  I  take  the  liberty  of  sitting  down?"  he 
asked. 

Agatha  bowed  in  silence,  and,  to  make  room  for 
him,  moved  a  blue  shawl  of  Diana's,  which  was 
lying  on  the  bench;  he  slowly  sank  into  the  place 
and  then  said  very  gently: 

"I  have  ventured  to  speak  to  you,  because  I  have 
something  particular  to  say."  His  voice  trembled 
and  he  was  extremely  pale.  His  eyes,  which  Agatha 
thought  very  handsome,  had  a  remarkable  expres 
sion. 

"I  am  afraid  you  are  ill,"  she  said,  with  great 
kindness.  "I  have  often  noticed  you  and  pitied 
you." 

"I  thought  you  did,  a  little/'  the  young  man 
answered.  "That  is  why  I  made  up  my  mind  to 
speak  to  you." 

"You  are  getting  worse,"  said  Agatha,  softly. 

"Yes,  I  am  getting  worse;  I  am  dying.  I  am 
perfectly  conscious  of  it ;  I  have  no  illusions.  I  am 
weaker  every  day;  I  shall  last  but  a  few  weeks." 
This  was  said  very  simply;  sadly  but  not  lugu 
briously. 

But  Agatha  felt  almost  awe-stricken ;  there  stirred 


Longstaff's  Marriage 71 

in  her  heart  a  delicate  sense  of  sisterhood  with  this 
beautiful  young  man  who  sat  there  and  talked  thus 
submissively  of  death. 

"Can  nothing  be  done?"  she  said. 

He  shook  his  head  and  smiled  a  little.  "Nothing 
but  to  try  and  get  what  pleasure  I  can  from  this 
little  remnant  of  life." 

Though  he  smiled  she  felt  that  he  was  very 
serious;  that  he  was,  indeed,  deeply  agitated,  and 
trying  to  master  his  emotion. 

"I  am  afraid  you  get  very  little  pleasure," 
Agatha  rejoined.  "You  seem  entirely  alone." 

"I  am  entirely  alone.  I  have  no  family, — no 
near  relations.  I  am  absolutely  alone." 

Agatha  rested  her  eyes  on  him  compassionately, 
and  then 

"You  ought  to  have  spoken  to  us,"  she  said. 

He  sat  looking  at  her;  he  had  taken  off  his  hat; 
he  was  slowly  passing  his  hand  over  his  forehead. 
"You  see  I  do — at  last !" 

"You  wanted  to  before?" 

"Very  often." 

"I  thought  so !"  said  Agatha,  with  a  candor  which 
was  in  itself  a  dignity. 

"But  I  couldn't,"  said  Mr.  Longstaff.  "I  never 
saw  you  alone." 

Before  she  knew  it  Agatha  was  blushing  a  little ; 
for,  to  the  ear,  simply,  his  words  implied  that  it 


72 Master  Eustace 

was  to  her  only  he  would  appeal  for  the  pleasure 
he  had  coveted.  But  the  next  instant  she  had  be 
come  conscious  that  what  he  meant  was  simply  that 
he  admired  her  companion  so  much  that  he  was 
afraid  of  her,  and  that,  daring  to  speak  to  herself, 
he  thought  her  a  much  smaller  and  less  interesting 
personage.  Her  blush  immediately  faded ;  for  there 
was  no  resentment  to  keep  the  color  in  her  cheek; 
and  there  was  no  resentment  still  when  she  per 
ceived  that,  though  her  neighbor  was  looking 
straight  at  her,  with  his  inspired,  expanded  eyes, 
he  was  thinking  too  much  of  Diana  to  have  noticed 
this  little  play  of  confusion. 

"Yes,  it's  very  true,"  she  said.  "It  is  the  first 
time  my  friend  has  left  me." 

"She  is  very  beautiful,"  said  Mr.  Longstaff. 

"Very  beautiful, — and  as  good  as  she  is  beauti 
ful." 

"Yes,  yes,"  he  rejoined,  solemnly.  "I  am  sure 
of  that.  I  know  it !" 

"I  know  it  even  better  than  you,"  said  Agatha, 
smiling  a  little. 

"Then  you  will  have  all  the  more  patience  with 
what  I  want  to  say  to  you.  It  is  very  strange;  it 
will  make  you  think,  at  first,  that  I  am  perhaps  out 
of  my  mind.  But  I  am  not ;  I  am  thoroughly  reason 
able.  You  will  see."  Then  he  paused  a  moment; 
his  voice  had  begun  to  tremble  again. 


Longstaff's  Marriage 73 

"I  know  what  you  are  going  to  say/'  said  Agatha, 
very  gently.  "You  are  in  love  with  my  friend." 

Mr.  Longstaff  gave  her  a  look  of  devoted  grati 
tude  ;  he  lifted  up  the  edge  of  the  blue  shawl,  which 
he  had  often  seen  Diana  wear,  and  pressed  it  to  his 
lips. 

"I  am  extremely  grateful !"  he  exclaimed.  "You 
don't  think  me  crazy,  then?" 

"If  you  are  crazy,  there  have  been  a  great  many 
madmen!"  said  Agatha. 

"Of  course  there  have  been  a  great  many.  I  have 
said  that  to  myself,  and  it  has  helped  me.  They 
have  gained  nothing  but  the  pleasure  of  their  love, 
and  I  therefore,  in  gaining  nothing  and  having 
nothing,  am  not  worse  off  than  the  rest.  But  they 
had  more  than  I,  didn't  they?  You  see  I  have  had 
absolutely  nothing, — not  eveji  a  glance,"  he  went 
on.  "I  have  never  even  seen  her  look  at  me.  I  have 
not  only  never  spoken  to  her,  but  I  have  never  been 
near  enough  to  speak  to  her.  This  is  all  I  have 
ever  had, — to  lay  my  hand  on  something  she  has. 
worn!  and  yet  for  the  past  month  I  have  thought 
of  her  night  and  day.  Sitting  over  there,  a  hundred 
rods  away,  simply  because  she  was  sitting  in  this 
place,  in  the  same  sunshine,  looking  out  on  the  same 
sea :  that  was  happiness  enough  for  me.  I  am  dy 
ing,  but  for  the  last  five  weeks  that  has  kept  me 
alive.  It  was  for  that  I  got  up  every  day  and  came 


74 Master  Eustace 

out  here ;  but  for  that,  I  should  have  staid  at  home 
and  never  have  got  up  again.  I  have  never  sought 
to  be  presented  to  her,  because  I  didn't  wish  to 
trouble  her  for  nothing.  It  seemed  to  me  it  would 
be  an  impertinence  to  tell  her  of  my  admiration. 
I  have  nothing  to  offer  her, — I  am  but  the  shadow 
of  a  living  man,  and  if  I  were  to  say  to  her, 
'Madam,  I  love  you/  she  could  only  answer,  "Well, 
sir,  what  then?'  Nothing — nothing!  To  speak  to 
her  of  what  I  felt  seemed  only  to  open  the  lid  of  a 
grave  in  her  face.  It  was  more  delicate  not  to  do 
that ;  so  I  kept  my  distance  and  said  nothing.  Even 
this,  as  I  say,  has  been  a  happiness,  but  it  has  been 
a  happiness  that  has  tired  me  out.  This  is  the  last 
of  it.  I  must  give  up  and  make  an  end !"  And  he 
stopped,  panting  a  little  and  apparently  exhausted 
with  his  eloquence. 

Agatha  had  always  "heard  of  love  at  first  sight; 
she  had  read  of  it  in  poems  and  romances,  but  she 
had  never  been  so  near  to  it  as  this.  It  seemed  to 
her  most  beautiful,  and  she  believed  in  it  devoutly. 
It  made  Mr.  Longstaff  brilliantly  interesting ;  it  cast 
a  glory  over  the  details  of  his  face  and  person,  and 
the  pleading  inflections  of  his  voice.  The  little 
English  ladies  had  been  right;  he  was  certainly  a 
perfect  gentleman.  She  could  trust  him. 

"Perhaps  if  you  stay  at  home  awhile  you  will 
get  better,"  she  said,  soothingly. 


Longstaff's  Marriage  75 

Her  tone  seemed  to  him  such  an  indication  that 
she  accepted  the  propriety  and  naturalness  of  his 
passion  that  he  put  out  his  hand  and  for  an  instant 
laid  it  on  her  own. 

"I  knew  you  were  reasonable — I  knew  I  could 
talk  to  you.  But  I  shall  not  get  well.  All  the  great 
doctors  say  so,  and  I  believe  them.  If  the  passionate 
desire  to  get  well  for  a  particular  purpose  could 
work  a  miracle  and  cure  a  mortal  disease,  I  should 
have  seen  the  miracle  two  months  ago.  To  get  well 
and  have  a  right  to  speak  to  your  friend — that  was 
my  passionate  desire.  But  I  am  worse  than  ever; 
I  am  very  weak  and  I  shall  not  be  able  to  come  out 
any  more.  It  seemed  to  me  to-day  that  I  should 
never  see  you  again,  and  yet  I  wanted  so  much  to 
be  able  to  tell  you  this !  It  made  me  very  unhappy. 
What  a  wonderful  chance  it  is  that  she  went  away! 
I  must  be  grateful !  if  heaven  doesn't  grant  my  great 
prayers  it  grants  my  small  ones.  I  beg  you  to 
render  me  this  service.  Tell  her  what  I  have  told 
you.  Not  now — not  till  I  am  gone.  Don't  trouble  . 
her  with  it  while  I  am  in  life.  Please  promise  me 
that.  But  when  I  am  dead  it  will  seem  less  im 
portunate,  because  then  you  can  speak  of  me  in  the 
past.  It  will  be  like  a  story.  My  servant  will  come 
and  tell  you.  Then  say  to  her — 'You  were  his  last 
thought,  and  it  was  his  last  wish  that  you  should 
know  it.' '  He  slowly  got  up  and  put  out  his  hand ; 


76 Master  Eustace 

his  servant,  who  had  been  standing  at  a  distance, 
came  forward  with  obsequious  solemnity,  as  if  it 
were  part  of  his  duty  to  adapt  his  deportment  to 
the  tone  of  his  master's  conversation.  Agatha  Gos 
ling  took  the  young  man's  hand  and  he  stood  and 
looked  at  her  a  moment  longer.  She  too  had  risen 
to  her  feet ;  she  was  much  impressed. 

"You  won't  tell  her  until  after ?"  he  said 

pleadingly.  She  shook  her  head.  "And  then  you 
will  tell  her,  faithfully?"  She  nodded,  he  pressed 
her  hand,  and  then,  having  raised  his  hat,  he  took 
his  servant's  arm  and  slowly  moved  away. 

Agatha  kept  her  word ;  she  said  nothing  to  Diana 
about  her  interview.  The  young  Americans  came 
out  and  sat  upon  the  shore  the  next  day,  and  the 
next,  and  the  next,  and  Agatha  watched  intently  for 
Mr.  Longstaff's  re-appearance.  But  she  watched  in 
vain ;  day  after  day  he  was  absent,  and  his  absence 
confirmed  his  sad  prediction.  She  thought  all  this 
a  wonderful  thing  to  happen  to  a  woman,  and  as 
she  glanced  askance  at  her  beautiful  companion,  she 
was  almost  irritated  at  seeing  her  sit  there  so  care 
less  and  serene,  while  a  poor  young  man  was  dying, 
as  one  might  say,  of  love  for  her.  At  moments  she 
wondered  whether,  in  spite  of  her  promise,  it  was 
not  her  Christian  duty  to  tell  Diana  his  story  and 
give  her  the  chance  to  go  to  him.  But  it  occurred 
to  Agatha,  who  knew  very  well  that  her  companion 


Longstaff's  Marriage  77 

had  a  certain  stately  pride  in  which  she  herself  was 
lacking,  that  even  if  she  were  told  of  his  condition 
Diana  might  decline  to  do  anything;  and  this  she 
felt  to  be  a  most  painful  contingency.  Besides,  she 
had  promised,  and  she  always  kept  her  promises. 
But  her  thoughts  were  constantly  with  Mr.  Long- 
staff,  and  the  romance  of  the  affair.  This  made 
her  melancholy  and  she  talked  much  less  than  usual. 
Suddenly  she  was  aroused  from  a  reverie  by  hearing 
Diana  express  a  careless  curiosity  as  to  what  had 
become  of  the  solitary  young  man  who  used  to  sit 
on  the  neighboring  bench  and  do  them  the  honor  to 
stare  at  them. 

For  almost  the  first  time  in  her  life,  Agatha  Gos 
ling  deliberately  dissembled. 

"He  has  either  gone  away,  or  he  has  taken  to  his 
bed.  I  believe  he  is  dying  alone,  in  some  wretched 
mercenary  lodging." 

"I  prefer  to  believe  something  more  cheerful," 
said  Diana.  "I  believe  he  is  gone  to  Paris  and  is 
eating  a  beautiful  dinner  at  the  Trois  Freres  Pro- 
vengaux." 

Agatha  for  a  moment  said  nothing;  and 
then— 

"I  don't  think  you  care  what  becomes  of  him," 
she  ventured  to  observe. 

"My  dear  child,  why  should  I  care?"  Diana  de 
manded. 


78 Master  Eustace 

And  Agatha  Gosling  was  forced  to  admit  that 
there  really  was  no  particular  reason.  But  the  event 
contradicted  her.  Three  days  afterward  she  took  a 
long  drive  with  her  friend,  from  which  they  returned 
only  as  dusk  was  closing  in.  As  they  descended  from 
the  carriage  at  the  door  of  their  lodging  she  ob 
served  a  figure  standing  in  the  street,  slightly  apart, 
which  even  in  the  early  darkness  had  an  air  of 
familiarity.  A  second  glance  assured  her  that  Mr. 
LongstafFs  servant  was  hovering  there  in  the  hope 
of  catching  her  attention.  She  immediately  deter 
mined  to  give  him  a  liberal  measure  of  it.  Diana 
left  the  vehicle  and  passed  into  the  house,  while 
the  coachman  fortunately  asked  for  orders  for  the 
morrow.  Agatha  briefly  gave  such  as  were  neces 
sary,  and  then,  before  going  in,  turned  to  the  hover 
ing  figure.  It  approached  on  tiptoe,  hat  in  hand,  and 
shaking  its  head  very  sadly.  The  old  man  wore  an 
air  of  animated  affliction  which  indicated  that  Mr. 
Longstaff  was  a  generous  master,  and  he  proceeded 
to  address  Miss  Gosling  in  that  macaronic  French 
which  is  usually  at  the  command  of  Italian  do 
mestics  who  have  seen  the  world. 

"I  stole  away  from  my  dear  gentleman's  bedside 
on  purpose  to  have  ten  words  with  you.  The  old 
woman  at  the  fruit-stall  opposite  told  me  that  you 
had  gone  to  drive,  so  I  waited ;  but  it  seemed  to  me 
a  thousand  years  till  you  returned !" 


Longstaff's  Marriage 79 

"But  you  have  not  left  your  master  alone?"  said 
Agatha. 

"He  has  two  Sisters  of  Charity — heaven  reward 
them!  They  watch  with  him  night  and  day.  He 
is  very  low,  pauvre  cher  homme!"  And  the  old  man 
looked  at  his  interlocutress  with  that  clear,  human, 
sympathetic  glance  with  which  Italians  of  all  classes 
bridge  over  the  social  gulf.  Agatha  felt  that  he 
knew  his  master's  secret,  and  that  she  might  dis 
cuss  it  with  him  freely. 

"Is  he  dying?"  she  asked. 

"That's  the  question,  dear  lady!  He  is  very  low. 
The  doctors  have  given  him  up ;  but  the  doctors  don't 
know  his  malady.  They  have  felt  his  dear  body 
all  over,  they  have  sounded  his  lungs,  and  looked 
at  his  tongue  and  counted  his  pulse ;  they  know  what 
he  eats  and  drinks — it's  soon  told !  But  they  haven't 
seen  his  mind,  dear  lady.  I  have ;  and  so  far  I'm  a 
better  doctor  than  they.  I  know  his  secret — I  know 
that  he  loves  the  beautiful  girl  above!"  and  the  old 
man  pointed  to  the  upper  windows  of  the  house. 

"Has  your  master  taken  you  into  his  confidence  ?" 
Agatha  demanded. 

He  hesitated  a  moment;  then  shaking  his  head  a 
little  and  laying  his  hand  on  his  heart 

"Ah,  dear  lady,"  he  said,  "the  point  is  whether 
I  have  taken  him  into  mine.  I  have  not,  I  con 
fess  ;  he  is  too  far  gone.  But  I  have  determined  to 


80 Master  Eustace 

be  his  doctor  and  to  try  a  remedy  the  others  have 
never  thought  of.     Will  you  help  me?" 

"If  I  can,"  said  Agatha.    "What  is  your  remedy?" 
The  old  man  pointed  to  the  upper  windows  of 
the  house  again. 

"Your  lovely  friend !     Bring  her  to  his  bedside." 
"If  he  is  dying,"  said  Agatha,  "how  would  that 
help  him?" 

"He's  dying  for  want  of  it.  That's  my  idea  at 
least,  and  I  think  it's  worth  trying.  If  a  young 
man  loves  a  beautiful  woman,  and,  having  never  so 
much  as  touched  the  tip  of  her  glove,  falls  into  a 
mortal  illness  and  wastes  away,  it  requires  no  great 
wit  to  see  that  his  illness  doesn't  come  from  his 
having  indulged  himself  too  grossly.  It  comes 
rather  from  the  opposite  cause!  If  he  sinks  when 
she's  away,  perhaps  he'll  come  up  when  she's  there. 
At  any  rate,  that's  my  theory;  and  any  theory  is 
good  that  will  save  a  dying  man.  Let  the  Diana 
come  and  stand  a  moment  by  his  bed,  and  lay  her 
hand  upon  his.  We  shall  see  what  happens.  If 
he  gets  well,  it's  worth  while;  if  he  doesn't,  there 
is  no  harm  done.  A  young  lady  risks  nothing  in 
going  to  see  a  poor  gentleman  who  lies  in  a  stupor 
between  two  holy  women." 

Agatha  was  much  impressed  with  this  picturesque 
reasoning,  but  she  answered  that  it  was  quite  im 
possible  that  her  beautiful  friend  should  go  upon 


Longstaf's  Marriage 81 

this  pious  errand  without  a  special  invitation  from 
Mr.  Longstaff.  Even  should  he  beg  Diana  to  come 
to  him  Agatha  was  by  no  means  sure  her  companion 
would  go;  but  it  was  very  certain  she  would  not 
take  such  an  extraordinary  step  at  the  mere  sugges 
tion  of  a  servant. 

"But  you,  dear  lady,  have  the  happiness  not  to 
be  a  servant,"  the  old  man  rejoined.  "Let  the  sug 
gestion  be  yours." 

"From  me  it  could  come  with  no  force,  for  what 
am  I  supposed  to  know  about  your  poor  master?" 

"You  have  not  told  the  Diana  what  he  told  you 
the  other  day?" 

Agatha  answered  this  question  by  another  ques 
tion. 

"Did  he  tell  you  what  he  had  told  me  ?" 

The  old  man  tapped  his  forehead  an  instant  and 
smiled. 

"A  good  servant,  you  know,  dear  lady,  needs 
never  to  be  told  things !  If  you  have  not  repeated 
my  master's  words  to  your  beautiful  friend,  I  beg 
you  most  earnestly  to  do  so.  I  am  afraid  she  is 
rather  cold." 

Agatha  glanced  a  moment  at  the  upper  windows 
and  then  she  gave  a  silent  nod.  She  wondered 
greatly  to  find  herself  discussing  Diana's  character 
with  this  aged  menial;  but  the  situation  was  so 
strange  and  romantic  that  one's  old  landmarks  of 


82 Master  Eustace 

propriety  were  quite  obliterated,  and  it  seemed 
natural  that  a  valet  de  chambre  shoud  be  as  frank 
and  familiar  as  a  servant  in  an  old-fashioned  com 
edy. 

"If  it  is  necessary  that  my  dear  master  shall  send 
for  the  young  lady,"  Mr.  LongstafFs  domestic  re 
sumed,  "I  think  I  can  promise  you  that  he  will! 
Let  me  urge  you,  meanwhile,  to  talk  to  her!  If 
she  is  cold,  melt  her  down.  Prepare  her  to  find 
him  very  interesting.  If  you  could  see  him,  poor 
gentleman,  lying  there  as  still  and  handsome  as  if 
he  were  his  own  monument  in  a  campo  santo,  I  think 
he  would  interest  you." 

This  seemed  to  Agatha  a  very  touching  image, 
but  she  came  to  a  sense  that  her  interview  with  Mr. 
LongstafFs  representative,  now  unduly  prolonged, 
was  assuming  a  nocturnal  character.  She  abruptly 
brought  it  to  a  close,  after  having  assured  her  inter 
locutor  that  she  would  reflect  upon  what  he  had 
told  her,  and  she  rejoined  her  companion  in  the 
deepest  agitation.  Late  that  evening  her  agitation 
broke  out.  She  went  into  Diana's  room,  where  she 
found  this  young  lady  standing  white-robed  before 
her  mirror,  with  her  auburn  tresses  rippling  down 
to  her  knees;  and  then,  taking  her  two  hands,  she 
told  the  story  of  the  young  Englishman's  passion, 
told  of  his  coming  to  talk  to  her  that  day  that  Diana 
had  left  her  alone  on  the  bench  by  the  sea,  and  of 


Longstaff's  Marriage 83 

his  venerable  valet  having,  a  couple  of  hours  before, 
sought  speech  of  her  on  the  same  subject.  Diana 
listened,  at  first  with  a  rosy  flush,  and  then  with  a 
cold,  an  almost  cruel,  frown. 

"Take  pity  upon  him,"  said  Agatha  Gosling, — 
"take  pity  on  him  and  go  and  see  him." 

"I  don't  understand,"  said  her  companion,  "and 
it  seems  to  me  very  disagreeable.  What  is  Mr. 
Longstaff  to  me?"  But  before  they  separated, 
Agatha  had  persuaded  her  to  say  that  if  a  message 
really  should  come  from  the  young  man's  death -bed, 
she  would  not  refuse  him  the  light  of  her  presence. 

The  message  really  came,  brought  of  course  by 
the  invalid's  zealous  chamberlain.  He  re-appeared 
on  the  morrow,  announcing  that  his  master  very 
humbly  begged  for  the  honor  of  ten  minutes'  con 
versation  with  the  two  ladies.  They  consented  to 
follow  him,  and  he  led  the  way  to  Mr.  LongstafFs 
apartments.  Diana  still  wore  her  cloudy  brow,  but 
it  made  her  look  terribly  handsome.  Under  the  old 
man's  guidance  they  passed  through  a  low  green 
door  in  a  yellow  wall,  across  a  tangled  garden  full 
of  orange-trees  and  winter  roses,  and  into  a  white- 
wainscoted  saloon,  where  they  were  presently  left 
alone  before  a  great  classic,  Empire  clock,  perched 
upon  a  frigid  southern  chimney-piece.  They  waited, 
however,  but  a  few  moments;  the  door  of  an  ad 
joining  room  opened  and  the  Sisters  of  Charity, 


84 Master  Eustace 

in  white-winged  hoods  and  with  their  hands  thrust 
into  the  loose  sleeves  of  the  opposite  arm,  came 
forth  and  stood  with  downcast  eyes  on  either  side 
of  the  threshold.  Then  the  old  servant  appeared 
between  them  and  beckoned  to  the  two  young  girls 
to  advance.  The  latter  complied  with  a  certain  hesi 
tation,  and  he  led  them  into  the  chamber  of  the 
dying  man.  Here,  pointing  to  the  bed,  he  silently 
left  them  and  withdrew;  not  closing,  however,  the 
door  of  communication  of  the  saloon,  where  he  took 
up  his  station  with  the  Sisters  of  Charity. 

Diana  and  her  companion  stood  together  in  the 
middle  of  the  darker  room,  waiting  for  an  invita 
tion  to  approach  their  summoner.  He  lay  in  his 
bed,  propped  up  on  pillows,  with  his  arms  outside 
the  counterpane.  For  a  moment  he  simply  gazed 
at  them ;  he  was  as  white  as  the  sheet  that  covered 
him,  and  he  certainly  looked  like  a  dying  man.  But 
he  had  the  strength  to  bend  forward  and  to  speak  in 
a  soft,  distinct  voice. 

"Would  you  be  so  kind,"  said  Mr.  Longstaff, 
"as  to  come  nearer?" 

Agatha  Gosling  gently  pushed  her  friend  for 
ward,  but  she  followed  her  to  the  bedside.  Diana 
stood  there,  her  frown  had  melted  away;  and  the 
young  man  sank  back  upon  his  pillows  and  looked 
at  her.  A  faint  color  came  into  his  face,  and  he 
clasped  his  two  hands  together  on  his  breast.  For 


Longstaff's  Marriage 85 

some  moments  he  simply  gazed  at  the  beautiful  girl 
before  him.  It  was  an  awkward  situation  for  her, 
and  Agatha  expected  her  at  any  moment  to  turn 
away  in  disgust.  But,  slowly,  her  look  of  proud 
compulsion,  of  mechanical  compliance,  was  ex 
changed  for  something  more  patient  and  pitying. 
The  young  Englishman's  face  expressed  a  kind  of 
spiritual  ecstasy  which,  it  was  impossible  not  to  feel, 
gave  a  peculiar  sanctity  to  the  occasion. 

"It  was  very  generous  of  you  to  come,"  he  said 
at  last.  "I  hardly  ventured  to  hope  you  would.  I 
suppose  you  know — I  suppose  your  friend,  who 
listened  to  me  so  kindly,  has  told  you." 

"Yes,  she  knows,"  murmured  Agatha — "she 
knows." 

"I  did  not  intend  you  should  know  until  after  my 
death,"  he  went  on;  "but," — and  he  paused  a 
moment  and  shook  his  clasped  hands  together, — "I 
couldn't  wait!  And  when  I  felt  that  I  couldn't 
wait,  a  new  idea,  a  new  desire,  came  into  my  mind." 
He  was  silent  again  for  an  instant,  still  looking  with 
worshipful  entreaty  at  Diana.  The  color  in  his  face 
deepened.  "It  is  something  that  you  may  do  for 
me.  You  will  think  it  a  most  extraordinary  re 
quest  ;  but,  in  my  position,  a  man  grows  bold.  Dear 
lady,  will  you  marry  me?" 

"Oh,  dear!"  cried  Agatha  Gosling,  just  audibly. 
Her  companion  said  nothing.  Her  attitude  seemed 


86 Master  Eustace 

to  say  that  in  this  remarkable  situation,  one  thing 
was  no  more  surprising  than  another.  But  she  paid 
Mr.  LongstafFs  proposal  the  respect  of  slowly  seat 
ing  herself  in  a  chair  which  had  been  placed  near 
his  bed;  here  she  rested  in  maidenly  majesty,  with 
her  eyes  fixed  on  the  ground. 

"It  will  help  me  to  die  happy,  since  die  I  must!" 
the  young  man  continued.  "It  will  enable  me  to  do 
something  for  you — the  only  thing  I  can  do.  I 
have  property, — lands,  houses,  a  great  many  beauti 
ful  things, — things  I  have  loved,  and  am  very  sorry 
to  be  leaving  behind  me.  Lying  here  helpless  and 
hopeless  through  so  many  days,  the  thought  has 
come  to  me  of  what  a  bliss  it  would  be  to  know  that 
they  would  rest  in  your  hands.  If  you  were  my 
wife,  they  would  rest  there  safely.  You  might  be 
spared  much  annoyance ;  and  it  is  not  only  that.  It 
is  a  fancy  I  have  beyond  that.  It  would  be  the  feel 
ing  of  it!  I  am  fond  of  life.  I  don't  want  to  die; 
but  since  I  must  die,  it  would  be  a  happiness  to  have 
got  just  this  out  of  life — this  joining  of  our  hands 
before  a  priest.  You  could  go  away  then.  For  you 
it  would  make  no  change — it  would  be  no  burden. 
But  I  should  have  a  few  hours  in  which  to  lie  and 
think  of  my  happiness." 

There  was  something  in  the  young  man's  tone 
so  simple  and  sincere,  so  tender  and  urgent,  that 
Agatha  Gosling  was  touched  to  tears.  She  turned 


Longstaff's  Marriage 87 

away  to  hide  them,  and  went  on  tiptoe  to  the  win 
dow,  where  she  wept  silently.  Diana  apparently 
was  not  unmoved.  She  raised  her  eyes,  and  let  them 
rest  kindly  on  those  of  Mr.  Longstaff,  who  con 
tinued  softly  to  urge  his  proposal.  "It  would  be  a 
great  charity,"  he  said,  "a  great  condescension ;  and 
it  can  produce  no  consequence  to  you  that  you  could 
regret.  It  can  only  give  you  a  larger  liberty.  You 
know  very  little  about  me,  but  I  have  a  feeling  that, 
so  far  as  belief  goes,  you  can  believe  me,  and  that 
is  all  I  ask  of  you.  I  don't  ask  you  to  love  me, — 
that  takes  time.  It  is  something  I  cannot  pretend  to. 
It  is  only  to  consent  to  the  form,  the  ceremony.  I 
have  seen  the  English  clergyman;  he  says  he  will 
perform  it.  He  will  tell  you,  besides,  all  about  me, 
— that  I  am  an  English  gentleman,  and  that  the 
name  I  offer  you  is  one  of  the  best  in  the  world/' 
It  was  strange  to  hear  a  dying  man  lie  there  and 
argue  his  point  in  this  categorical  fashion ;  but  now, 
apparently,  his  argument  was  finished.  There  was 
a  deep  silence,  and  Agatha  thought  it  would  be 
delicate  on  her  own  part  to  retire.  She  moved 
quietly  into  the  adjoining  room,  where  the  two 
Sisters  of  Charity  still  stood  with  their  hands  in 
their  sleeves,  and  the  old  Italian  valet  was  taking 
snuff  with  a  melancholy  gesture,  like  a  perplexed 
diplomatist.  Agatha  turned  her  back  to  these  peo 
ple,  and,  approaching  a  window  again,  stood  looking 


88 Master  Eustace 

out  into  the  garden  upon  the  orange-trees  and  the 
•winter  roses.  It  seemed  to  her  that  she  had  been 
listening  to  the  most  beautiful,  most  romantic,  and 
most  eloquent  of  declarations.  How  could  Diana 
be  insensible  to  it?  She  earnestly  hoped  her  com 
panion  would  consent  to  the  solemn  and  interesting 
ceremony  proposed  by  Mr.  Longstaff,  and  though 
her  delicacy  had  prompted  her  to  withdraw,  it  per 
mitted  her  to  listen  eagerly  to  what  Diana  would 
say.  Then  (as  she  heard  nothing)  it  was  eclipsed 
by  the  desire  to  go  back  and  whisper,  with  a  sym 
pathetic  kiss,  a  word  of  counsel.  She  glanced  round 
again  at  the  Sisters  of  Charity,  who  appeared  to 
have  perceived  that  the  moment  was  one  of  sus 
pense.  One  of  them  detached  herself,  and,  as 
Agatha  returned,  followed  her  a  few  steps  into  the 
room.  Diana  had  got  up  from  her  chair.  She  was 
looking  about  her  uneasily.  She  grasped  at 
Agatha's  hand.  Reginald  Longstaff  lay  there  with 
his  wasted  face  and  his  brilliant  eyes,  looking  at 
them  both.  Agatha  took  her  friend's  two  hands  in 
both  her  own. 

"It  is  very  little  to  do,  dearest,"  she  murmured, 
"and  it  will  make  him  very  happy." 

The  young  man  appeared  to  have  heard  her,  and 
he  repeated  her  words  in  a  tone  of  intense  entreaty. 

"It  is  very  little  to  do,  dearest." 

Diana  looked  round  at  him  an  instant.    Then,  for 


Longstaff's  Marriage  89 

an  instant,  she  covered  her  face  with  her  two  hands. 
Removing  them,  but  holding  them  still  against  her 
cheeks,  she  looked  at  her  companion  with  eyes  that 
Agatha  always  remembered — eyes  through  which  a 
thin  gleam  of  mockery  flashed  from  the  seriousness 
of  her  face. 

"Suppose,  after  all,  he  should  get  well?"  she 
murmured. 

Longstaff  heard  it;  he  gave  a  long,  soft  moan, 
and  turned  away.  The  Sister  immediately  ap 
proached  his  bed,  on  the  other  side,  dropped  on  her 
knees  and  bent  over  him,  while  he  leaned  his  head 
against  the  great  white  cape  along  which  her  crucifix 
depended.  Diana  stood  a  moment  longer,  looking 
at  him;  then,  gathering  her  shawl  together  with  a 
great  dignity,  she  slowly  walked  out  of  the  room. 
Agatha  could  do  nothing  but  follow  her.  The  old 
Italian,  holding  the  door  open  for  them  to  pass  out, 
made  them  an  exaggerated  obeisance. 

In  the  garden  Diana  paused,  with  a  flush  in  her 
cheek,  and  said, 

"If  he  could  die  with  it,  he  could  die  without  it!" 
But  beyond  the  garden  gate,  in  the  empty  sunny 
street,  she  suddenly  burst  into  tears. 

Agatha  made  no  reproaches,  no  comments;  but 
her  companion,  during  the  rest  of  the  day,  spoke  of 
Mr.  Longstaff  several  times  with  an  almost  pas 
sionate  indignation.  She  pronounced  his  conduct 


90 Master  Eustace 

indelicate,  egotistic,  impertinent;  she  declared  that 
she  had  found  the  scene  most  revolting.  Agatha, 
for  the  moment,  remained  silent,  but  the  next  day 
she  attempted  to  suggest  something  in  apology  for 
the  poor  young  man.  Then  Diana,  with  great  em 
phasis,  begged  her  to  be  so  good  as  never  to  men 
tion  his  name  again ;  and  she  added  that  he  had  put 
her  completely  out  of  humor  with  Nice,  from  which 
place  they  would  immediately  take  their  departure. 
This  they  did  without  delay;  they  began  to  travel 
again.  Agatha  heard  no  more  of  Reginald  Long- 
staff;  the  English  ladies  who  had  been  her  original 
source  of  information  with  regard  to  him  had  now 
left  Nice ;  otherwise  she  would  have  written  to  them 
for  news.  That  is,  she  would  have  thought  of  writ 
ing  to  them ;  I  suspect  that,  on  the  whole,  she  would 
have  denied  herself  this  satisfaction,  on  the  ground 
of  loyalty  to  her  friend.  Agatha,  at  any  rate,  could 
only  drop  a  tear,  at  solitary  hours,  upon  the  young 
man's  unanswered  prayer  and  early  death.  It  must 
be  confessed,  however,  that  sometimes,  as  the  weeks 
elapsed,  a  certain  faint  displeasure  mingled  itself 
with  her  sympathy — a  wish  that,  roughly  speaking, 
poor  Mr.  Longstaff  had  left  them  alone.  Since  that 
strange  interview  at  his  bedside  things  had  not  gone 
well ;  the  charm  of  their  earlier  contentment  seemed 
broken.  Agatha  said  to  herself  that,  really,  if  she 
were  superstitious,  she  might  fancy  that  Diana's 


Longstaff's  Marriage 91 

conduct  on  this  occasion  had  brought  them  under 
an  evil  charm.  It  was  no  superstition,  certainly,  to 
think  that  this  young  lady  had  lost  a  certain  even 
ness  of  temper.  She  was  impatient,  absent-minded, 
indifferent,  capricious.  She  expressed  unaccountable 
opinions  and  proposed  unnatural  plans.  It  is  true 
that  disagreeable  things  were  constantly  happening 
to  them — things  which  would  have  taxed  the  most 
unruffled  spirit.  Their  post-horses  broke  down, 
their  postilions  were  impertinent,  their  luggage  went 
astray,  their  servants  betrayed  them.  The  heavens 
themselves  seemed  to  join  in  the  conspiracy,  and  for 
days  together  were  dark  and  ungenerous,  treating 
them  only  to  wailing  winds  and  watery  clouds.  It 
was,  in  a  large  measure,  in  the  light  of  after  years 
that  Agatha  judged  this  period,  but  even  at  the  time 
she  felt  it  to  be  depressing,  uncomfortable,  un 
natural.  Diana  apparently  shared  this  feeling, 
though  she  never  openly  avowed  it.  She  took  refuge 
in  a  kind  of  haughty  silence,  and  whenever  a  new 
contretemps  came  to  her  knowledge,  she  simply 
greeted  it  with  a  bitter  smile  which  Agatha  always 
interpreted  as  an  ironical  reflection  on  poor,  fan 
tastic,  obtrusive  Mr.  Longstaff,  who,  through  some 
mysterious  action  upon  the  machinery  of  nature, 
had  turned  the  tide  of  their  fortunes.  At  the  end 
of  the  summer,  suddenly,  Diana  proposed  they 
should  go  home,  in  the  tone  of  a  person  who  gives 


92 Master  Eustace 

up  a  hopeless  struggle.  Agatha  assented,  and  the 
two  ladies  returned  to  America,  much  to  the  relief 
of  Miss  Gosling,  who  had  an  uncomfortable  sense 
that  there  was  something  unexpressed  and  unregu 
lated  between  them,  which  gave  their  conversation 
a  resemblance  to  a  sultry  morning.  But  at  home 
they  separated  very  tenderly,  for  Agatha  had  to 
go  and  devote  herself  to  her  nearer  kinsfolk  in  the 
country.  These  good  people  after  her  long  absence 
were  exacting,  so  that  for  two  years  she  saw  nothing 
of  her  late  companion. 

She  often,  however,  heard  from  her,  and  Diana 
figured  in  the  town  gossip  that  was  occasionally 
wafted  to  her  rural  home.  She  sometimes  figured 
strangely — as  a  rattling  coquette,  who  carried  on 
flirtations  by  the  hundred  and  broke  hearts  by  the 
dozen.  This  had  not  been  Diana's  former  char 
acter  and  Agatha  found  matter  for  meditation  in 
the  change.  But  the  young  lady's  own  letters  said 
little  of  her  admirers  and  displayed  no  trophies. 
They  came  very  fitfully — sometimes  at  the  rate  of  a 
dozen  a  month  and  sometimes  not  at  all;  but  they 
were  usually  of  a  serious  and  abstract  cast  and  con 
tained  the  author's  opinions  upon  life,  death,  reli 
gion  and  immortality.  Mistress  of  her  actions  and 
of  a  pretty  fortune,  it  might  have  been  expected 
that  news  would  come  in  trustworthy  form  of 
Diana's  at  last  accepting  one  of  her  rumored  lovers. 


Longstaff's  Marriage  93 

Such  news  in  fact  came,  and  it  was  apparently  trust 
worthy,  inasmuch  as  it  proceeded  from  the  young 
lady  herself.  She  wrote  to  Agatha  that  she  was  to 
be  married,  and  Agatha  immediately  congratulated 
her  upon  her  happiness.  Then  Diana  wrote  back 
that  though  she  was  to  be  married  she  was  not  at 
all  happy;  and  she  shortly  afterward  added  that  she 
had  broken  off  her  projected  union  and  that  her 
felicity  was  smaller  than  ever.  Poor  Agatha  was 
sorely  perplexed  and  found  it  a  comfort  that  a 
month  after  this  her  friend  should  have  sent  her  a 
peremptory  summons  to  come  to  her.  She  im 
mediately  obeyed.  Arriving,  after  a  long  journey, 
at  the  dwelling  of  her  young  hostess,  she  saw  Diana 
at  the  farther  end  of  the  drawing-room,  with  her 
back  turned,  looking  out  of  the  window.  She  was 
evidently  watching  for  Agatha,  but  Miss  Gosling 
had  come  in,  by  accident,  through  a  private  en 
trance  which  was  not  visible  from  the  window.  She 
gently  approached  her  friend  and  then  Diana  turned. 
She  had  her  two  hands  laid  upon  her  cheeks  and 
her  eyes  were  sad;  her  face  and  attitude  suggested 
something  that  Agatha  had  seen  before  and  kept 
the  memory  of.  While  she  kissed  her  Agatha  re 
membered  that  it  was  just  so  she  had  stood  for 
that  last  moment  before  poor  Mr.  Longstaff. 

"Will  you  come  abroad  with  me  again?"  Diana 
asked.    "I  am  very  ill." 


94 Master  Eustace 

"Dearest,  what  is  the  matter?"  said  Agatha. 

"I  don't  know;  I  believe  I  am  dying.  They  tell 
me  this  place  is  bad  for  me ;  that  I  must  have  another 
climate;  that  I  must  move  about.  Will  you  take 
care  of  me?  I  shall  be  very  easy  to  take  care  of 
now." 

Agatha,  for  all  answer,  embraced  her  afresh,  and 
as  soon  after  this  as  possible  the  two  friends  em 
barked  again  for  Europe.  Miss  Gosling  had  lent 
herself  the  more  freely  to  .this  scheme  as  her  com 
panion's  appearance  seemed  a  striking  confirmation 
of  her  words.  Not,  indeed,  that  she  looked  as  if 
she  were  dying,  but  in  the  two  years  that  had  elapsed 
since  their  separation  she  had  wasted  and  faded. 
She  looked  more  than  two  years  older  and  the  bril 
liancy  of  her  beauty  was  dimmed.  She  was  pale 
and  languid,  and  she  moved  more  slowly  than  when 
she  seemed  a  goddess  treading  the  forest  leaves. 
The  beautiful  statue  had  grown  human  and  taken 
on  some  of  the  imperfections  of  humanity.  And 
yet  the  doctors  by  no  means  affirmed  that  she  had 
a  mortal  malady,  and  when  one  of  them  was  asked 
by  an  inquisitive  matron  why  he  had  recommended 
this  young  lady  to  cross  the  seas,  he  replied  with  a 
smile  that  it  was  a  principle  in  his  system  to  pre 
scribe  the  remedies  that  his  patients  acutely  de 
sired. 

At  present  the  fair  travelers  had  no  misadven- 


Longstaff's  Marriage  95 

tures.  The  broken  charm  had  removed  itself;  the 
heavens  smiled  upon  them  and  their  postilions 
treated  them  like  princesses.  Diana,  too,  had  com 
pletely  recovered  her  native  placidity;  she  was  the 
gentlest,  the  most  docile,  the  most  reasonable  of 
women.  She  was  silent  and  subdued  as  was  natural 
in  an  invalid,  though  in  one  important  particular 
her  demeanor  was  certainly  at  variance  with  the 
idea  of  debility.  She  relished  movement  much  more 
than  rest,  and  constant  change  of  place  became  the 
law  of  her  days.  She  wished  to  see  all  the  places 
that  she  had  not  seen  before,  and  all  the  old  ones 
over  again. 

"If  I  am  really  dying,"  she  said,  smiling  softly. 
"I  must  leave  my  farewell  cards  everywhere."  So 
she  lived  in  a  great  open  carriage,  leaning  back  in 
it  and  looking,  right  and  left,  at  everything  she 
passed.  On  her  former  journey  to  Europe  she  had 
seen  but  little  of  England,  and  now  she  would  visit 
the  whole  of  this  famous  island.  So  she  rolled  for 
weeks  through  the  beautiful  English  landscape,  past 
meadows  and  hedge-rows,  over  the  avenues  of  great 
estates  and  under  the  walls  of  castles  and  abbeys. 
For  the  English  parks  and  manors,  the  "Halls"  and 
"Courts,"  she  had  an  especial  admiration,  and  into 
the  grounds  of  such  as  were  open  to  appreciative 
tourists  she  made  a  point  of  penetrating.  Here  she 
stayed  her  carriage  beneath  the  oaks  and  beeches, 


96 Master  Eustace 

and  sat  for  an  hour  at  a  time  listening  to  night 
ingales  and  watching  browsing  deer.  She  never 
failed  to  visit  a  residence  that  lay  on  her  road,  and 
as  soon  as  she  arrived  at  a  place  she  inquired  punc 
tiliously  whether  there  were  any  fine  country-seats 
in  the  neighborhood.  In  this  fashion  she  spent  a 
whole  summer.  Through  the  autumn  she  continued 
to  wander  restlessly;  she  visited,  on  the  Continent, 
a  hundred  watering-places  and  travelers'  resorts. 
The  beginning  of  the  winter  found  her  in  Rome, 
where  she  confessed  to  extreme  fatigue  and  deter 
mined  to  seek  repose. 

"I  am  weary,  weary,"  she  said  to  her  companion. 
"I  didn't  know  how  weary  I  was.  I  feel  like  sinking 
down  in  this  City  of  Rest,  and  resting  here  for 
ever." 

She  took  a  lodging  in  an  old  palace,  where  her 
chamber  was  hung  with  ancient  tapestries,  and  her 
drawing-room  decorated  with  the  arms  of  a  pope. 
Here,  giving  way  to  her  fatigue,  she  ceased  to 
wander.  The  only  thing  she  did  was  to  go  every 
day  to  St.  Peter's.  She  went  nowhere  else.  She 
sat  at  her  window  all  day  with  a  big  book  in  her 
lap,  which  she  never  read,  looking  out  into  a  Roman 
garden  at  a  fountain  plashing  into  a  weedy  alcove, 
and  half  a  dozen  nymphs  in  mottled  marble.  Some 
times  she  told  her  companion  that  she  was  happier 
this  way  than  she  had  ever  been, — in  this  way,  and 


Longstaff's  Marriage 97 

in  going  to  St.  Peter's.  In  the  great  church  she 
often  spent  the  whole  afternoon.  She  had  a  servant 
behind  her,  carrying  a  stool.  He  placed  her  stool 
against  a  marble  pilaster,  and  she  sat  there  for  a 
long  time,  looking  up  into  the  airy  hollow  of  the 
dome  and  over  the  peopled  pavement.  She  noticed 
every  one  who  passed  her,  but  Agatha,  lingering 
beside  her,  felt  less  at  liberty,  she  hardly  knew  why, 
to  murmur  a  sportive  commentary  on  the  people 
about  them  than  she  had  felt  when  they  sat  upon 
the  shore  at  Nice. 

One  day  Agatha  left  her  and  strolled  about  the 
church  by  herself.  The  ecclesiastical  life  of  Rome 
had  not  shrunken  to  its  present  smallness,  and  in 
one  corner  or  another  of  St.  Peter's,  there  was 
always  some  point  of  worship.  Agatha  found  enter 
tainment,  and  was  absent  for  half  an  hour.  When 
she  came  back,  she  found  her  companion's  place 
deserted,  and  she  sat  down  on  the  empty  stool  to 
await  her  re-appearance.  Some  time  elapsed  and 
she  wandered  away  in  quest  of  her.  She  found  her 
at  last,  near  one  of  the  side-altars;  but  she  was  not 
alone.  A  gentleman  stood  before  her  whom  she 
appeared  just  to  have  encountered.  Her  face  was 
very  pale,  and  its  expression  led  Agatha  to  look 
straightway  at  the  stranger.  Then  she  saw  he  was 
no  stranger;  he  was  Reginald  Longstaff!  He,  too, 
evidently  had  been  much  startled,  but  he  was  al- 


98 Master  Eustace 

ready  recovering  himself.  He  stood  very  gravely 
an  instant  longer ;  then  he  silently  bowed  to  the  two 
ladies  and  turned  away. 

Agatha  felt  at  first  as  if  she  had  seen  a  ghost; 
but  the  impression  was  immediately  corrected  by  the 
fact  that  Mr.  Longstaff's  aspect  was  very  much  less 
ghostly  than  it  had  been  in  life.  He  looked  like  a 
strong  man;  he  held  himself  upright  and  had  a  flush 
of  color.  What  Agatha  saw  in  Diana's  face  was  not 
surprise;  it  was  a  pale  radiance  which  she  waited  a 
moment  to  give  a  name  to.  Diana  put  out  her  hand 
and  laid  it  in  her  arm,  and  her  touch  helped  Agatha 
to  know  what  it  was  that  her  face  expressed.  Then 
she  felt  too  that  this  knowledge  itself  was  not  a 
surprise;  she  seemed  to  have  been  waiting  for  it. 
She  looked  at  her  friend  again  and  Diana  was  beau 
tiful.  Diana  blushed  and  became  more  beautiful 
yet.  Agatha  led  her  back  to  her  seat  near  the  marble 
pilaster. 

"So  you  were  right/'  Agatha  said  presently.  "He 
would,  after  all,  have  got  well." 

Diana  would  not  sit  down;  she  motioned  to  her 
servant  to  bring  away  the  stool,  and  continued  to 
move  toward  the  door.  She  said  nothing  until  she 
stood  without,  in  the  great  square  of  the  colon 
nades  and  fountains.  Then  she  spoke: 

"I  am  right  now,  but  I  was  wrong  then.    He  got 


Longstaff's  Marriage  99 

well  because  I  refused  him.    I  gave  him  a  hurt  that 
cured  him." 

That  evening,  beneath  the  Roman  lamps,  in  the 
great  drawing-room  of  the  arms  of  the  pope,  a 
remarkable  conversation  took  place  between  the  two 
friends.  Diana  wept  and  hid  her  face ;  but  her  tears 
and  her  shame  were  gratuitous.  Agatha  felt,  as 
I  have  said,  that  she  had  already  guessed  all  the 
unexplained,  and  it  was  needless  for  her  companion 
to  tell  her  that  three  weeks  after  she  had  refused 
Reginald  Longstaff  she  insanely  loved  him.  It  was 
needless  that  Diana  should  confess  that  his  image 
had  never  been  out  of  her  mind,  that  she  believed 
he  was  still  among  the  living,  and  that  she  had  come 
back  to  Europe  with  a  desperate  hope  of  meeting 
him.  It  was  in  this  hope  that  she  had  wandered 
from  town  to  town,  and  noticed  all  the  passers ;  and 
it  was  in  this  hope  that  she  had  lingered  in  so  many 
English  parks.  She  knew  her  love  was  very  strange ; 
she  could  only  say  it  had  consumed  her.  It  had  all 
come  upon  her  afterward, — in  retrospect,  in  medita 
tion.  Or  rather,  she  supposed,  it  had  been  there 
always  since  she  first  saw  him,  and  the  revulsion 
from  displeasure  to  pity,  after  she  left  his  bedside, 
had  brought  it  out.  And  with  it  came  the  faith 
that  he  had  indeed  got  well,  both  of  his  malady  and 
of  his  own  passion.  This  was  her  punishment! 
And  then  she  spoke  with  a  divine  simplicity  which 


100 Master  Eustace 

Agatha,  weeping  a  little  too,  wished  that,  if  this 
possibility  were  a  fact,  the  young  man  might  have 
heard.  "I  am  so  glad  he  is  well  and  strong.  And 
that  he  looks  so  handsome  and  so  good !"  And  she 
presently  added,  "Of  course  he  has  got  well  only 
to  hate  me.  He  wishes  never  to  see  me  again.  Very 
good.  I  have  had  my  wish;  I  have  seen  him  once 
more.  That  was  what  I  wanted  and  I  can  die  con 
tent." 

It  seemed,  in  fact,  as  if  she  were  going  to  die. 
She  went  no  more  to  St.  Peter's,  and  exposed  her 
self  to  no  more  encounters  with  Mr.  Longstaff. 
She  sat  at  her  window  and  looked  out  at  the  mottled 
dryads  and  the  cypresses,  or  wandered  about  her 
quarter  of  the  palace  with  a  vaguely  smiling  resig 
nation.  Agatha  watched  her  with  a  sadness  that 
was  less  submissive.  This  too  was  something  that 
she  had  heard  of,  that  she  had  read  of  in  poetry 
and  fable,  but  that  she  had  never  supposed  she 
should  see; — her  companion  was  dying  of  love! 
Agatha  pondered  many  things  and  resolved  upon 
several.  The  first  of  these  latter  was  sending  for 
the  doctor.  This  personage  came,  and  Diana  let 
him  look  at  her  through  his  spectacles,  and  hold 
her  white  wrist.  He  announced  that  she  was  ill, 
and  she  smiled  and  said  she  knew  it;  and  then  he 
gave  her  a  little  phial  of  gold-colored  fluid,  which 
he  bade  her  to  drink.  He  recommended  her  to  re- 


Long  staff's  Marriage  I'Ol 

main  in  Rome,  as  the  climate  exactly  suited  her 
complaint.  Agatha's  second  desire  was  to  see  Mr. 
Longstaff,  who  had  appealed  to  her,  she  reflected, 
in  the  day  of  his  own  tribulation,  and  whom  she 
therefore  had  a  right  to  approach  at  present.  She 
disbelieved,  too,  that  the  passion  which  led  him  to 
take  that  extraordinary  step  at  Nice  was  extinct; 
such  passions  as  that  never  died.  If  he  had  made 
no  further  attempt  to  see  Diana  it  was  because  he 
believed  that  she  was  still  as  cold  as  when  she  turned 
away  from  his  death-bed.  It  must  be  added,  more 
over,  that  Agatha  felt  a  lawful  curiosity  to  learn 
how  from  that  death-bed  he  had  risen  again  into 
blooming  manhood. 

On  this  last  point,  all  elucidation  left  something 
unexplained.  Agatha  went  to  St.  Peter's,  feeling 
sure  that  sooner  or  later  she  should  encounter  him 
there.  At  the  end  of  a  week  she  perceived  him,  and 
seeing  her,  he  immediately  came  and  spoke  to  her. 
As  Diana  had  said,  he  was  now  extremely  hand 
some,  and  he  looked  particularly  good.  He  was  a 
blooming,  gallant,  quiet,  young  English  gentleman. 
He  seemed  much  embarrassed,  but  his  manner  to 
Agatha  expressed  the  highest  consideration. 

"You  must  think  me  a  dreadful  imposter,"  he 
said,  very  gravely.  "But  I  was  dying, — or  I  be 
lieved  I  was." 


102 Master  Eustace 

"And  by  what  miracle  did  you  recover?" 
He  was  silent  a  moment,  and  then  he  said : 
"I  suppose  it  was  by  the  miracle  of  wounded 
pride!"  Then  she  noticed  that  he  asked  nothing 
about  Diana;  and  presently  she  felt  that  he  knew 
she  was  thinking  of  this.  "The  strangest  part  of 
it,"  he  added,  "was  that  when  I  came  back  to 
strength,  what  had  gone  before  had  become  as  a 
simple  dream.  And  what  happened  to  me  here  the 
other  day,"  he  went  on,  "failed  to  make  it  a  reality 
again!" 

Agatha  looked  at  him  a  moment  in  silence,  and 
saw  again  that  he  was  handsome  and  kind ;  and  then 
dropping  a  sigh  over  the  wonderful  mystery  of 
things,  she  turned  sadly  away.  That  evening,  Diana 
said  to  her : 

"I  know  that  you  have  seen  him!" 
Agatha  came  to  her  and  kissed  her. 
"And  I  am  nothing  to  him  now?" 

"My  own  dearest "  murmured  Agatha. 

Diana  had  drunk  the  little  phial  of  gold-colored 
liquid;  but  after  this,  she  ceased  to  wander  about 
the  palace;  she  never  left  her  room.  The  old  doc 
tor  was  with  her  constantly  now,  and  he  continued 
to  say  that  the  air  of  Rome  was  very  good  for  her 
complaint.  Agatha  watched  her  in  helpless  sad 
ness;  she  saw  her  fading  and  sinking,  and  yet  she 
was  unable  to  comfort  her.  She  tried  it  once  in 


Long  staff's  Marriage  103 

saying  hard  things  about  Mr.  Longstaff ,  in  pointing 
out  that  he  had  not  been  honorable;  rising  herein 
to  a  sublime  hypocrisy,  for,  on  that  last  occasion 
at  St.  Peter's,  the  poor  girl  had  felt  a  renewed  per 
sonal  admiration, — the  quickening  of  a  private 
flame;  she  saw  nothing  but  his  good  looks  and  his 
kind  manner. 

"What  did  he  want — what  did  he  mean,  after 
all?"  she  ingenuously  murmured,  leaning  over 
Diana's  sofa.  "Why  should  he  have  been  wounded 
at  what  you  said?  It  would  have  been  part  of  the 
bargain  that  he  should  not  get  well.  Did  he  mean 
to  take  an  unfair  advantage — to  make  you  his  wife 
under  false  pretenses?  When  you  put  your  finger 
on  the  weak  spot,  why  should  he  resent  it?  No, 
it  was  not  honorable." 

Diana  smiled  sadly;  she  had  no  false  shame  now, 
and  she  spoke  of  this  thing  as  if  it  concerned  an 
other  person. 

"He  would  have  counted  on  my  forgiving  him !" 
she  said.  A  little  while  after  this,  she  began  to 
sink  more  rapidly.  Then  she  called  her  friend  to 
her,  and  said  simply:  "Send  for  him!"  And  as 
Agatha  looked  perplexed  and  distressed,  she  added, 
"I  know  he  is  still  in  Rome." 

Agatha  at  first  was  at  a  loss  where  to  find  him, 
but  among  the  benefits  of  the  papal  dispensation 
was  the  fact  that  the  pontifical  police  could  in- 


104 Master  Eustace 

stantly  help  you  to  lay  your  hand  upon  any  sojourner 
in  the  Eternal  City.  Mr.  Longstaff  had  a  passport 
in  detention  by  the  government,  and  this  document 
formed  a  basis  of  instruction  to  the  servant  whom 
Agatha  sent  to  investigate  the  authorities.  The  ser 
vant  came  back  with  the  news  that  he  had  seen  the 
distinguished  stranger,  who  would  wait  upon  the 
ladies  at  the  hour  they  had  proposed.  When  this 
hour  came  and  Mr.  Longstaff  was  announced,  Diana 
said  to  her  companion  that  she  must  remain  with 
her.  It  was  an  afternoon  in  spring;  the  high  win 
dows  into  the  palace  garden  were  open,  and  the 
room  was  filled  with  great  sheaves  and  stocks  of 
the  abundant  Roman  flowers.  Diana  sat  in  a  deep 
armchair. 

It  was  certainly  a  difficult  position  for  Reginald 
Longstaff.  He  stopped  on  the  threshold  and  looked 
awhile  at  the  woman  to  whom  he  had  made  his 
extraordinary  offer;  then,  pale  and  agitated,  he  ad 
vanced  rapidly  toward  her.  He  was  evidently 
shocked  at  the  state  in  which  he  found  her ;  he  took 
her  hand,  and,  bending  over  it,  raised  it  to  his  lips. 
She  fixed  her  eyes  on  him  a  little,  and  she  smiled 
a  little. 

"It  is  I  who  am  dying  now,"  she  said.  "And 
now  I  want  to  ask  something  of  you — to  ask  what 
you  asked  of  me/' 

He  stared,  and  a  deep  flush  of  color  came  into 


Longstaff's  Marriage 105 

his  face;  he  hesitated  for  an  appreciable  moment. 
Then  lowering  his  head  with  a  movement  of  assent 
he  kissed  her  hand  again. 

"Come  back  to-morrow,"  she  said;  "that  is  all  I 
ask  of  you." 

He  looked  at  her  again  for  a  while  in  silence; 
then  he  abruptly  turned  and  left  her.  She  sent  for 
the  English  clergyman  and  told  him  that  she  was  a 
dying  woman,  and  that  she  wanted  the  marriage 
service  read  beside  her  couch.  The  clergyman,  too, 
looked  at  her,  marvelling;  but  he  consented  to 
humor  so  tenderly  romantic  a  whim  and  made  an 
appointment  for  the  afternoon  of  the  morrow. 
Diana  was  very  tranquil.  She  sat  motionless,  with 
her  hands  clasped  and  her  eyes  closed.  Agatha  wan 
dered  about,  arranging  and  re-arranging  the  flowers. 
On  the  morrow  she  encountered  Mr.  Longstaff  in 
one  of  the  outer  rooms.  He  had  come  before  his 
time.  She  made  this  objection  to  his  being  ad 
mitted  ;  but  he  answered  that  he  knew  he  was  early 
and  had  come  with  intention;  he  wished  to  spend 
the  intervening  hour  with  his  prospective  bride.  So 
he  went  in  and  sat  down  by  her  couch  again,  and 
Agatha,  leaving  them  alone,  never  knew  what  passed 
between  them.  At  the  end  of  the  hour  the  clergy 
man  arrived,  and  read  the  marriage  service  to  them, 
pronouncing  the  nuptial  blessing,  while  Agatha  stood 
by  as  witness.  Mr.  Longstaff  went  through  all  this 


106 Master  Eustace 

with  a  solemn,  inscrutable  face,  and  Agatha,  ob 
serving  him,  said  to  herself  that  one  must  at  least 
do  him  the  justice  to  admit  that  he  was  performing 
punctiliously  what  honor  demanded.  When  the 
clergyman  had  gone  he  asked  Diana  when  he  might 
see  her  again. 

"Never!"  she  said,  with  her  strange  smile.  And 
she  added — "I  shall  not  live  long  now." 

He  kissed  her  face,  but  he  was  obliged  to  leave 
her.  He  gave  Agatha  an  anxious  look  as  if  he 
wished  to  say  something  to  her,  but  she  preferred 
not  to  listen  to  him.  After  this  Diana  sank  rapidly. 
The  next  day,  Reginald  Longstaff  came  back  and 
insisted  upon  seeing  Agatha. 

"Why  should  she  die?"  he  asked.  "I  want  her 
to  live." 

"Have  you  forgiven  her?"  said  Agatha. 

"She  saved  me !"  he  cried. 

Diana  consented  to  see  him  once  more ;  there  were 
two  doctors  in  attendance  now,  and  they  also  had 
consented.  He  knelt  down  beside  her  bed  and  asked 
her  to  live.  But  she  feebly  shook  her  head. 

"It  would  be  wrong  of  me,"  she  said. 

Later,  when  he  came  back  once  more,  Agatha 
told  him  she  was  gone.  He  stood  wondering,  with 
tears  in  his  eyes. 

"I  don't  understand,"  he  said.  "Did  she  love  me 
or  not?" 


Longstaff's  Marriage 107 

"She  loved  you,"  said  Agatha,  "more  than  she 
believed  you  could  now  love  her;  and  it  seemed  to 
her  that,  when  she  had  had  her  moment  of  happi 
ness,  to  leave  you  at  liberty  was  the  tenderest  way 
she  could  show  it!" 


THEODOLINDE 


THEODOLINDE 

I  HAD  invited  the  excellent  fellow  to  dinner,  and 
had  jbegun  to  wonder,  the  stroke  of  half -past 
six  having  sounded,  why  he  did  not  present 
himself.  At  last  I  stepped  out  upon  the  balcony 
and  looked  along  the  street  in  the  direction  from 
which,  presumably,  he  would  approach.  A  Parisian 
thoroughfare  is  always  an  entertaining  spectacle, 
and  I  had  still  much  of  a  stranger's  alertness  of 
attention.  Before  long,  therefore,  I  quite  forgot 
my  unpunctual  guest  in  my  relish  of  the  multifarious 
animation  of  the  brilliant  city.  It  was  a  perfect 
evening  toward  the  end  of  April ;  there  was  a  charm 
ing  golden  glow  on  the  opposite  housetops,  which 
looked  toward  the  west;  there  was  a  sort  of  vernal 
odor  in  the  street,  mingling  with  the  emanations  of 
the  restaurant  across  the  way,  whose  door  now 
always  stood  open ;  with  the  delightful  aroma  of  the 
chocolate-shop  which  occupied  the  ground  floor  of 
the  house  in  whose  entresol  I  was  lodged ;  and,  as  I 

in 


112 Master  Eustace 

fancied,  with  certain  luscious  perfumes  hovering 
about  the  brilliantly-polished  window  of  the  hair 
dresser's  establishment  adjacent  to  the  restaurant. 
Then  there  was  a  woman  in  a  minutely-fluted  cap 
selling  violets  in  a  little  handcart,  which  she  gently 
pushed  along  over  the  smooth  asphalt,  and  which, 
as  she  passed,  left  a  sensible  trace  in  the  thick  mild 
air.  All  this  made  a  thoroughly  Parisian  mixture, 
and  I  envied  Sanguinetti  the  privilege  of  spending 
his  life  in  a  city  in  which  even  the  humblest  of  one's 
senses  was  the  medium  of  poetic  impressions. 
There  was  poetry  in  the  warm,  succulent  exhala 
tions  of  the  opposite  restaurant,  where,  among  the 
lighted  lamps,  I  could  see  the  little  tables  glittering 
with  their  glass  and  silver,  the  tenderly-brown  rolls 
nestling  in  the  petals  of  the  folded  napkins,  the 
waiters  in  their  snowy  aprons  standing  in  the  various 
attitudes  of  imminent  empressement,  the  agreeable 
dame  de  comptoir  sitting  idle  for  the  moment  and 
rubbing  her  plump  white  hands.  To  a  person  so 
inordinately  fond  of  chocolate  as  myself — there  was 
literally  a  pretty  little  box  half  emptied  of  large 
soft  globules  of  the  compound  standing  at  that 
moment  on  my  table,  for  all  the  world  as  if  I  had 
been  a  sweet-toothed  school-girl — there  was  of 
course  something  very  agreeable  in  the  faint  upward 
gusts  of  the  establishment  in  my  rez-de-chawsee. 
Presently,  too,  it  appeared  to  me  that  the  savors 


Theodolinde  113 


peculiar  to  the  hairdressing-shop  had  assumed  an 
extraordinary  intensity,  and  that  my  right-hand 
nostril  was  in  the  act  of  being  titillated  by  what 
might  fairly  be  called  the  very  poetry  of  cosmetics. 
Glancing  that  way  again,  I  perceived  the  source  of 
this  rich  effluvium.  The  hairdresser's  door  was 
open,  and  a  person  whom  I  took  to  be  his  wife  had 
come  to  inhale  upon  the  threshold  the  lighter  atmos 
phere  of  the  street.  She  stood  there  for  some  mo 
ments  looking  up  and  down,  and  I  had  time  to  see 
that  she  was  very  pretty.  She  wore  a  plain  black  silk 
dress,  and  one  needed  to  know  no  more  of  millinery 
than  most  men  to  observe  that  it  was  admirably  fitted 
to  a  charming  figure.  She  had  a  little  knot  of  pink 
ribbon  at  her  throat  and  a  bunch  of  violets  in  her 
rounded  bosom.  Her  face  seemed  to  me  at  once 
beautiful  and  lively — two  merits  that  are  not  always 
united;  for  smiles,  I  have  observed,  are  infrequent 
with  women  who  are  either  very  ugly  or  very  pretty. 
Her  light-brown  hair  was,  naturally  enough,  dressed 
with  consummate  art,  and  the  character  of  her 
beauty  being  suggestive  of  purity  and  gentleness, 
she  looked  (her  black  silk  dress  apart)  like  a  Ma 
donna  who  should  have  been  coiffee  in  the  Rue  de  la 
Paix.  What  a  delightful  person  for  a  barber's 
wife!  I  thought;  and  I  saw  her  sitting  in  the  little 
front  shop  at  the  desk  and  taking  the  money  with 
a  gracious  smile  from  the  gentlemen  who  had  been 


114 Master  Eustace 

having  their  whiskers  trimmed  in  the  inner  sanctu 
ary.  I  touched  my  own  whiskers,  and  straightway 
decided  that  they  needed  trimming.  In  a  few 
moments  this  lovely  woman  stepped  out  upon  the 
pavement,  and  strolled  along  in  front  of  the  shop- 
window  on  a  little  tour  of  inspection.  She  stood 
there  a  moment,  looking  at  the  brilliant  array  of 
brightly-capped  fla9ons,  of  ivory  toilet-implements, 
of  detached  human  tresses  disposed  in  every  variety 
of  fashionable  convolution:  she  inclined  her  head 
to  one  side  and  gently  stroked  her  chin.  I  was  able 
to  perceive  that  even  with  her  back  turned  she  was 
hardly  less  pretty  than  when  seen  in  front — her 
back  had,  as  they  say,  so  much  chic.  The  inclina 
tion  of  her  head  denoted  contentment,  even  com 
placency  ;  and,  indeed,  well  it  might,  for  the  window 
was  most  artistically  arranged.  Its  principal  glory 
was  conferred  by  two  waxen  heads  of  lovely  ladies, 
such  as  are  usually  seen  in  hairdressers'  windows; 
and  these  wig-wearing  puppets,  which  maintained  a 
constant  rotary  movement,  seemed  to  be  a  triumph 
of  the  modeller's  art.  One  of  the  revolving  ladies 
was  dark,  and  the  other  fair,  and  each  tossed  back 
her  head  and  thrust  out  her  waxen  bosom  and  parted 
her  rosy  lips  in  the  most  stylish  manner  conceivable. 
Several  persons  passing  by  had  stopped  to  admire 
them.  In  a  few  moments  a  second  inmate  came  to 
the  door  of  the  shop,  and  said  a  word  to  the  bar- 


Theodolinde  115 


ber's  pretty  wife.  This  was  not  the  barber  himself, 
but  a  young  woman  apparently  employed  in  the 
shop.  She  was  a  nice-looking  young  woman 
enough,  but  she  had  by  no  means  the  beauty  of  her 
companion,  who,  to  my  regret,  on  hearing  her  voice 
instantly  went  in. 

After  this  I  fell  to  watching  something  else, 
I  forget  what:  I  had  quite  forgotten  Sanguinetti. 
I  think  I  was  looking  at  a  gentleman  and  lady  who 
had  come  into  the  restaurant  and  placed  themselves 
near  the  great  sheet  of  plate  glass  which  separated 
the  interior  from  the  street.  The  lady,  who  had 
the  most  wonderfully  arched  eyebrows,  was  evi 
dently  ordering  the  dinner,  and  I  was  struck  with 
the  profusion  of  its  items.  At  last  she  began  to 
eat  her  soup,  with  her  little  finger  very  much  curled 
out,  and  then  my  gaze  wandered  toward  the  hair 
dresser's  window  again.  This  circumstance  re 
minded  me  that  I  was  really  very  good-natured  to 
be  waiting  so  placidly  for  that  dilatory  Sanguinetti. 
There  he  stood  in  front  of  the  coiffeur's,  staring  as 
intently  and  serenely  into  the  window  as  if  he  had 
the  whole  evening  before  him.  I  waited  a  few 
moments  to  give  him  a  chance  to  move  on,  but  he 
remained  there  rapt  in  contemplation.  What  in  the 
world  was  he  looking  at  ?  Had  he  spied  something 
that  could  play  a  part  in  his  collection?  For  San 
guinetti  was  a  collector,  and  had  a  room  full  of  old 


116 Master  Eustace 

crockery  and  uncomfortable  chairs.  But  he  "cared 
for  nothing  that  was  not  a  hundred  years  old,  and 
the  pretty  things  in  the  hairdresser's  window  all 
bore  the  stamp  of  the  latest  Parisian  manufacture 
— were  part  and  parcel  of  that  modern  rubbish 
which  he  so  cordially  despised.  What,  then,  had  so 
forcibly  arrested  his  attention?  Was  the  poor  fel 
low  thinking  of  buying  a  new  chignon  or  a  solitary 
pendent  curl  for  the  object  of  his  affections?  This 
could  hardly  be,  for  to  my  almost  certain  knowledge 
his  affections  had  no  object  save  the  faded  crockery 
and  the  singular  chairs  I  have  mentioned.  I  had, 
indeed,  more  than  once  thought  it  a  pity  that  he 
should  not  interest  himself  in  some  attractive  little 
woman,  for  he  might  end  by  marrying  her ;  and  that 
would  be  a  blessing,  inasmuch  as  she  would  prob 
ably  take  measures  for  his  being  punctual  when  he 
was  asked  out  to  dinner.  I  tapped  on  the  edge  of 
the  little  railing  which  served  as  my  window-guard, 
but  the  noise  of  the  street  prevented  this  admoni 
tion  from  reaching  his  ear.  He  was  decidedly  quite 
too  absorbed.  Then  I  ventured  to  hiss  at  him  in 
the  manner  of  the  Latin  races — a  mode  of  address 
to  which  I  have  always  had  a  lively  aversion,  but 
which,  it  must  be  confessed,  proceeding  from  Latin 
lips,  reaches  its  destination  in  cases  in  which  a  nobler 
volume  of  sound  will  stop  halfway.  Still,  like  the 
warrior's  widow  in  Tennyson's  song,  he  neither 


Theodolinde  117 


spake  nor  moved.  But  here,  suddenly,  I  compre 
hended  the  motive  of  his  immobility:  he  was  look 
ing  of  course  at  the  barber's  beautiful  wife,  the 
pretty  woman  with  the  face  of  a  Madonna  and  the 
coiffure  of  a  duchess,  whom  I  myself  had  just  found 
so  charming.  This  was  really  an  excuse,  and  I 
felt  disposed  to  allow  him  a  few  moments'  grace. 
There  was  evidently  an  unobstructed  space  behind 
the  window  through  which  this  attractive  person 
could  bo  perceived  as  she  sat  at  her  desk  in  some 
attitude  of  graceful  diligence — adding  up  the  items 
of  a  fine  lady's  little  indebtedness  for  rouge-pots 
and  rice-powder  or  braiding  ever  so  neatly  the  long 
tresses  of  a  fausse  natte  of  the  fashionable  color.  I 
promised  myself  to  look  out  for  this  unobstructed 
space  the  very  first  time  I  should  pass. 

I  gave  my  tarrying  guest  another  five  minutes' 
grace,  during  which  the  lamps  were  lighted  in  the 
hairdresser's  shop.  The  window  now  became  ex 
tremely  brilliant;  the  ivory  brushes  and  the  little 
silver  mirrors  glittered  and  flashed ;  the  colored  cos 
metics  in  the  little  toilet-bottles  acquired  an  almost 
appetizing  radiance;  and  the  beautiful  waxen  ladies, 
tossing  back  their  heads  more  than  ever  from  their 
dazzling  busts,  seemed  to  sniff  up  the  agreeable 
atmosphere.  Of  course  the  hairdresser's  wife  had 
become  even  more  vividly  visible,  and  so,  evidently, 
Sanguinetti  was  finding  out.  He  moved  no  more 


118 Master  Eustace 

than  if  he  himself  had  been  a  barber's  block.  This 
was  all  very  well,  but  now,  seriously,  I  was  hungry, 
and  I  felt  extremely  disposed  to  fling  a  flower-pot 
at  him.  I  had  an  array  of  these  ornaments  in  the 
balcony.  Just  then  my  servant  came  into  the  room ; 
and  beckoning  to  this  functionary  I  pointed  out  to 
him  the  gentleman  at  the  barber's  window,  and  bade 
him  go  down  into  the  street  and  interrupt  Mr. 
Sanguinetti's  contemplations.  He  departed,  de 
scended,  and  I  presently  saw  him  cross  the  way. 
Just  as  he  drew  near  my  friend,  however,  the  latter 
turned  round  abruptly  and  looked  at  his  watch. 
Then,  with  an  obvious  sense  of  alarm,  he  moved 
quickly  forward,  but  he  had  not  gone  -five  steps 
before  he  paused  again  and  cast  back  a  supreme 
glance  at  the  object  of  his  admiration.  He  raised 
his  hand  to  his  lips,  and,  upon  my  word,  he  looked 
as  if  he  was  kissing  it.  My  servant  now  accosted 
him  with  a  bow,  and  motioned  toward  my  balcony, 
but  Sanguinetti,  without  looking  up,  simply  passed 
quickly  across  to  my  door.  He  might  well  be  shy 
about  looking  up — kissing  his  hand  in  the  street  to 
pretty  dames  de  comptoir:  for  a  modest  little  man, 
who  was  supposed  to  care  for  nothing  but  bric-a- 
brac,  and  not  to  be  in  the  least  what  is  called  "enter 
prising"  with  women,  this  was  certainly  a  very 
pretty  jump.  And  the  hairdresser's  wife?  Had 
she,  on  her  side,  been  kissing  her  finger-tips  to  him  ? 


Theodolinde  119 


I  thought  it  very  possible,  and  remembered  that  I 
had  always  heard  that  Paris  is  the  city  of  gal 
lantry. 

Sanguinetti  came  in,  blushing  a  good  deal,  and 
saying  that  he  was  extremely  sorry  to  have  kept 
me  waiting. 

"Oh,"  I  answered,  "I  understand  it  very  well. 
I  have  been  watching  you  from  my  window  for  the 
last  quarter  of  an  hour/' 

He  smiled  a  little,  blushing  still.  "Though  I  have 
lived  in  Paris  for  fifteen  years,"  he  said,  "you  know 
I  always  look  at  the  shops.  One  never  knows  what 
one  may  pick  up." 

"You  have  a  taste,"  I  said,  "for  picking  up  pretty 
faces.  That  is  certainly  a  very  pretty  one  at  the 
hairdresser's." 

Poor  Sanguinetti  was  really  very  modest:  my 
"chaff"  discomposed  him,  and  he  began  to  fidget  and 
protest. 

"Oh !"  I  went  on,  "your  choice  does  great  honor 
to  your  taste.  She's  a  very  lovely  creature:  I  ad 
mire  her  myself." 

He  looked  at  me  a  moment  with  his  soup-spoon 
poised.  He  was  always  a  little  afraid  of  me :  he 
was  sure  I  thought  him  a  very  flimsy  fellow,  with 
his  passion  for  cracked  teacups  and  scraps  of  old 
brocade.  But  now  he  seemed  a  trifle  reassured: 
he  would  talk  a  little  if  he  dared.  "You  know  there 


120 Master  Eustace 

are  two  of  them,"  he  said,  "but  one  is  much  more 
beautiful  than  the  other." 

"Precisely,"  I  answered — "the  fair  one." 

"My  dear  friend,"  murmured  my  guest,  "she  is 
the  most  beautiful  object  I  ever  beheld." 

"That,  perhaps,"  I  said,  "is  going  a  little  too  far. 
But  she  is  uncommonly  handsome." 

"She  is  quite  perfect,"  Sanguinetti  declared,  fin 
ishing  his  soup.  And  presently  he  added,  "Shall 
I  tell  you  what  she  looks  like?" 

"Like  a  fashionable  angel,"  I  said. 

"Yes,"  he  answered,  smiling,  "or  like  a  Madonna 
who  should  have  had  her  hair  dressed — over  there." 

"My  dear  fellow,"  I  said,  "that  is  just  the  com 
parison  I  hit  upon  a  while  ago." 

"That  proves  the  truth  of  it.  It  is  a  real  Ma 
donna  type." 

"A  little  Parisianized,"  I  rejoined,  "about  the 
corners  of  the  mouth." 

"Possibly,"  said  Sanguinetti.  "But  the  mouth  is 
her  loveliest  feature." 

"Could  you  see  her  well?"  I  inquired  as  I  helped 
him  to  a  sweetbread. 

"Beautifully — especially  after  the  gas  was 
lighted." 

"Had  you  never  noticed  her  before?" 

"Never,  strangely  enough.  But  though,  as  I  say, 
I  am  very  fond  of  shop-windows,  I  confess  to  al- 


TJieodolinde  121 


ways  having  had  a  great  prejudice  against  those  of: 
the  hairdressers." 

"You  see,"  I  said,  "how  wrong  you  were." 
"No,  not  in  general:  this  is  an  exception.  The 
women  are  usually  hideous.  They  have  the  most 
impossible  complexions:  they  are  always  fearfully 
sallow.  There  is  one  of  them  in  my  street,  three 
doors  from  my  own  house :  you  would  say  she  was 

made  of "    And  he  paused  a  moment  for  his 

comparison.     "You  would  say  she  was  made  of 
tallow." 

We  finished  our  sweetbreads,  and,  I  think,  talked 
of  something  else,  my  companion  presently  drawing 
from  his  pocket  and  exhibiting  with  some  elation  a 
little  purchase  in  the  antiquarian  line  which  he  had 
made  that  morning.  It  was  a  small  coffee-cup  of 
the  Sevres  manufacture  and  of  the  period  of  Louis 
XV.,  very  delicately  painted  over  with  nosegays  and 
garlands.  I  was  far  from  being  competent  in  such 
matters,  but  Sanguinetti  assured  me  that  it  bore  a 
certain  little  earmark  which  made  it  a  precious  acqui 
sition.  And  he  put  it  back  into  its  little  red  morocco 
case,  and  fell  a-musing  with  his  eyes  wandering 
toward  the  window.  He  was  fond  of  old  gimcracks 
and  knickknacks  of  every  order  and  epoch,  but  he 
had,  I  knew,  a  special  tenderness  for  the  productions 
of  the  baser  period  of  the  French  monarchy.  His 
collection  of  snuff-boxes  and  flowered  screens  was 


122 Master  Eustace 

highly  remarkable — might,  I  suppose,  have  been 
called  celebrated.  In  spite  of  his  very  foreign  name, 
he  was  a  genuine  compatriot  of  my  own,  and  indeed 
our  acquaintance  had  begun  with  our  being,  as  very 
small  boys,  at  school  together.  There  was  a  tradi 
tion  that  Sanguinetti's  grandfather  had  been  an 
Italian  image-vender  in  the  days  when  those  gen 
tlemen  might  have  claimed  in  America  to  be  the  only 
representatives  of  a  care  for  the  fine  arts.  In  the 
early  part  of  the  century  they  were  also  less  numer 
ous  than  they  have  since  become,  and  it  was  believed 
that  the  founder  of  the  Transatlantic  stock  of  the 
Sanguinettis  had  by  virtue  of  his  fine  Italian  eyes, 
his  slouched  hat,  his  earrings,  his  persuasive  elo 
quence,  his  foreign  idioms  and  his  little  tray  of 
plaster  effigies  and  busts  been  deemed  a  personage 
of  sufficient  importance  to  win  the  heart  and  hand 
of  the  daughter  of  a  well-to-do  attorney  in  the  State 
of  Vermont.  This  lady  had  brought  her  husband  a 
property  which  he  had  invested  in  some  less  brittle 
department  of  the  Italian  trade,  and,  prospering  as 
people,  alas !  prospered  in  those  good  old  days,  had 
bequeathed,  much  augmented,  to  the  father  of  my 
guest.  My  companion,  who  had  several  sisters,  was 
brought  up  like  a  little  gentleman,  and  showed  symp 
toms  even  at  the  earliest  age  of  his  mania  for  refuse 
furniture.  At  school  he  used  to  collect  old  slate- 
pencils  and  match-boxes :  I  suppose  he  inherited  the 


TJieodolinde  123 


taste  from  his  grandfather,  who  had  perambulated 
the  country  with  a  tray  covered  with  the  most  use 
less  ornaments  (like  a  magnified  chess-board)  upon 
his  head.  When  he  was  twenty  years  old  San- 
guinetti  lost  his  father  and  got  his  share  of  the 
patrimony,  with  which  he  immediately  came  to 
Europe,  where  he  had  lived  these  seventeen  years. 
When  I  first  saw  him  on  coming  to  Paris,  I  asked 
him  if  he  meant  never  to  go  back  to  New  York, 
and  I  very  well  remember  his  answer:  "My  dear 
fellow"  (in  a  very  mournful  tone),  "what  can  you 
get  there?  The  things  are  all  second-rate,  and  dur 
ing  the  Louis  Quinze  period,  you  know,  our  poor 

dear    country    was    really — really "      And    he 

shook  his  head  very  slowly  and  expressively. 

I  answered  that  there  were  (as  I  had  been  told) 
very  good  spinning-wheels  and  kitchen-settles,  but 
he  rejoined  that  he  cared  only  for  that  which  was 
truly  elegant.  He  was  a  most  simple-minded  and 
amiable  little  bachelor,  and  would  have  done  any 
thing  possible  to  oblige  a  friend,  but  he  made  no 
secret  of  his  conviction  thaf  "pretty  things"  were 
the  only  things  in  the  world  worth  troubling  one's 
self  about.  He  was  very  near-sighted,  and  was 
always  putting  up  his  glass  to  look  at  something  on 
your  chimney-piece  or  your  side-table.  He  had  a 
lingering,  solemn  way  of  talking  about  the  height 
of  Madame  de  Pompadour's  heels  and  the  different 


124 Master  Eustace 

shapes  of  old  Dutch  candlesticks ;  and  though  many 
of  his  fellow-country  people  thought  him  very  "af 
fected,"  he  always  seemed  to  me  the  least  preten 
tious  of  men.  He  never  read  the  newspapers  for 
their  politics,  and  didn't  pretend  to:  he  read  them 
only  for  their  lists  of  auction-sales.  I  had  a  great 
kindness  for  him,  he  seemed  to  me  such  a  pure- 
minded  mortal,  sitting  there  in  his  innocent  com 
pany  of  Dresden  shepherdesses  and  beauties  whose 
smiles  were  stippled  on  the  lids  of  snuff-boxes. 
There  is  always  something  agreeable  in  a  man  who 
is  a  perfect  example  of  a  type ;  and  Sanguinetti  was 
all  of  one  piece.  He  was  the  perfect  authority  upon 
pretty  things. 

He  kept  looking  at  the  window,  as  I  have  said, 
and  it  required  no  great  shrewdness  to  guess  that 
his  thoughts  had  stepped  out  of  it  and  were  hover 
ing  in  front  of  the  hairdresser's  etalage.  I  was  in 
clined  to  humor  his  enthusiasm,  for  it  amused  me 
to  see  a  man  who  had  hitherto  found  a  pink-faced 
lady  on  a  china  plate  a  sufficiently  substantial  ob 
ject  of  invocation,  led  captive  by  a  charmer  who 
would,  as  the  phrase  is,  have  something  to  say  for 
herself. 

"Shouldn't  you  like  to  have  a  closer  view  of  her?" 
I  asked  with  a  sympathetic  smile. 

He  glanced  at  me  and  blushed  again:  'That 
lovely  creature?" 


Theodolinde  125 


"That  lovely  creature.  Shouldn't  you  have  liked 
to  get  nearer?" 

"Indeed  I  should.  That  sheet  of  plate-glass  is  a 
great  vexation." 

"But  why  didn't  you  make  a  pretext  for  going 
into  the  shop?  You  might  have  bought  a  tooth 
brush." 

"I  don't  know  that  I  should  have  gained  much/' 
said  Sanguinetti  simply. 

"You  would  have  seen  her  move :  her  movement 
is  charming." 

"Her  movement  is — the  poetry  of  motion.  But 
I  could  see  that  outside." 

"My  dear  fellow,"  I  urged,  "you  are  not  enter 
prising  enough.  In  your  place  I  should  get  a  foot 
ing  in  the  shop." 

He  fixed  his  clear  little  near-sighted  eyes  upon 
me.  "Yes,  yes,"  he  said,  "it  would  certainly  be 
delightful  to  be  able  to  sit  there  and  watch  her:  it 
would  be  more  comfortable  than  standing  outside." 

"Je  crois  bien!  But  sitting  there  and  watching 
her?  You  go  rather  far." 

"I  suppose  I  should  be  rather  in  the  way.  But 
every  now  and  then  she  would  turn  her  face  toward 
me.  And  I  don't  know,"  he  added,  "but  that  she 
is  as  pretty  behind  as  before." 

"You  make;  an  observation  that  I  made  myself. 
She  has  so  much  chic" 


126 Master  Eustace 

Sanguinetti  kissed  his  finger-tips  with  a  move 
ment  that  he  had  learned  of  his  long  Parisian  so 
journ.  "The  poetry  of  chic But  I  shall  go 

further,"  he  presently  pursued.  "I  don't  despair, 
I  don't  despair."  And  he  paused  with  his  hands  in 
his  pockets,  tilting  himself  back  in  his  seat. 

"You  don't  despair  of  what?" 

"Of  making  her  my  own." 

I  burst  out  laughing:  "Your  own,  my  dear  fel 
low!  You  are  more  enterprising  than  I  thought. 
But  what  do  you  mean?  I  don't  suppose  that  under 
the  circumstances  you  can  marry  her?" 

"No:  under  the  circumstances,  unfortunately,  I 
can't.  But  I  can  have  her  always  there." 

"Always  where?" 

"At  home,  in  my  room.  It's  just  the  place  for  her." 

"Ah,  my  good  friend,"  I  rejoined,  laughing,  but 
slightly  scandalized,  "that's  a  matter  of  opinion." 

"It's  a  matter  of  taste.  I  think  it  would  suit 
her." 

A  matter  of  taste,  indeed,  this  question  of  com 
mon  morality!  Sanguinetti  was  more  Parisianized 
than  I  had  supposed,  and  I  reflected  that  Paris  was 
certainly  a  very  dangerous  place,  since  it  had  got 
the  better  of  his  inveterate  propriety.  But  I  was 
not  too  much  shocked  to  be  still  a  good  deal  amused, 

"Of  course  I  shall  not  go  too  fast,"  he  went  on. 
"I  shall  not  be  too  abrupt," 


Theodolinde  127 


'Tray  don't." 

"I  shall  approach  the  matter  gradually.     I  shall 
go  into  the  shop  several  times  to  buy  certain  things. 
First  a  pot  of  cold  cream,  then  a  piece  of  soap,  then 
a  bottle  of  glycerine.     I  shall  go  into  a  great  many 
ecstasies  and  express  no  end  of  admiration.    Mean 
while,  she  will  slowly  move  around,  and  every  now 
and  then  she  will  look  at  me.     And  so,  little  by 
little,  I  will  come  to  the  great  point." 
"Perhaps  you  will  not  be  listened  to." 
"I  will  make  a  very  handsome  offer." 
"What  sort  of  an  offer  do  you  mean?" 
"I  am  ashamed  to  tell  you :  you  will  call  it  throw 
ing  away  money." 

An  offer  of  money !  He  was  really  very  crude. 
Should  I  too  come  to  this  if  I  continued  to  live  in 
Paris?  "Oh,"  I  said,  "if  you  think  that  money 

simply  will  do  it " 

"Why,  you  don't  suppose,"  he  exclaimed,  "that 
I  expect  to  have  her  for  nothing?'*  He  was  actually 
cynical,  and  I  remained  silent.  "But  I  shall  not  be 
happy  again — at  least  for  a  long  time" — he  went 
on,  "unless  I  succeed.  I  have  always  dreamed  of 
just  such  a  woman  as  that ;  and  now  at  last,  when  I 
behold  her  perfect  image  and  embodiment,  why  I 
simply  can't  do  without  her."  He  was  evidently 
very  sincere. 

"You  are  simply  in  love,"  I  said. 


128 Master  Eustace 

He  looked  at  me  a  moment,  and  blushed :  "Yes, 
I  honestly  believe  I  am.  It's  very  absurd." 

"From  some  point  of  view  or  other,"  I  said,  "love 
is  always  absurd;"  and  I  decided  that  the  matter 
was  none  of  my  business. 

We  talked  of  other  things  for  an  hour,  but  before 
he  took  leave  of  me  Sanguinetti  reverted  to  the 
Beautiful  Being  at  the  hairdresser's.  "I  am  sure 
you  will  think  me  a  great  donkey,"  he  said,  "for 
taking  that — that  creature  so  seriously;"  and  he 
nodded  in  the  direction  of  the  other  side  of  the 
street. 

"I  was  always  taught  in  Boston,"  I  answered, 
"that  it  is  our  duty  to  take  things  seriously." 

I  made  a  point,  of  course,  the  next  day  of  stop 
ping  at  the  hairdresser's  window  for  the  purpose 
of  obtaining  another  glimpse  of  the  remarkable 
woman  who  had  made  such  an  impression  upon 
my  friend.  I  found,  in  fact,  that  there  was  a  large 
aperture  in  the  back  of  the  window — it  came  just 
between  the  two  beautiful  dolls — through  which  it 
was  very  possible  to  see  what  was  going  on  in  a 
considerable  part  of  the  shop.  Just  then,  however, 
the  object  of  Sanguinetti's  admiration  was  not 
within  the  range  of  vision  of  a  passer-by,  and  I 
waited  some  time  without  her  appearing.  At  last, 
having  improvised  a  purchase,  I  entered  the 
aromatic  precinct.  To  my  vexation,  the  attendant 


Theodolinde  129 


who  came  forward  to  serve  me  was  not  the  charming 
woman  whom  I  had  seen  the  evening  before  on  the 
pavement,  but  the  young  person  of  inferior  attrac 
tions  who  had  come  to  the  door  to  call  her.  This 
young  person  also  wore  a  black  silk  dress  and  had 
a  very  neat  figure:  she  was  beautifully  coiffee  and 
very  polite.  But  she  was  a  very  different  affair 
from  Sanguinetti's  friend,  and  I  rather  grudged  the 
five  francs  that  I  paid  her  for  the  little  bottle  of 
lavender  water  that  I  didn't  want.  What  should  I 
do  with  a  bottle  of  lavender  water?  I  would  give 
it  to  Sanguinetti.  I  lingered  in  the  shop  under 
half  a  dozen  pretexts,  but  still  saw  no  sign  of  its 
lovelier  inmate.  The  other  young  woman  stood 
smiling  and  rubbing  her  hands,  answering  my  ques 
tions  and  giving  explanations  with  high-pitched 
urbanity.  At  last  I  took  up  my  little  bottle  and  laid 
my  hand  upon  the  door-knob.  At  that  moment  a 
velvet  curtain  was  raised  at  the  back  of  the  shop, 
and  the  hairdresser's  wife  presented  herself.  She 
stood  there  a  moment  with  the  curtain  lifted,  look 
ing  out  and  smiling:  on  her  beautiful  head  was 
poised  a  crisp  little  morning-cap.  Yes,  she  was 
lovely,  and  I  really  understood  Sanguinetti's  sudden 
passion.  But  I  could  not  stand  there  staring  at  her, 
and  I  had  exhausted  my  expedients :  I  was  obliged 
to  withdraw.  I  came  and  stood  in  front  of  the 
shop,  however,  and  presently  she  approached  the 


130 Master  Eustace 

window.  She  looked  into  it  to  see  if  it  was  in 
proper  order.  She  was  still  smiling — she  seemed 
always  to  be  smiling — but  she  gave  no  sign  of  seeing 
me,  and  I  felt  that  if  there  had  been  a  dozen  men 
standing  there,  she  would  have  worn  that  same 
sweetly  unconscious  mask.  She  glanced  about  her 
a  moment,  and  then,  extending  a  plump  little 
white  hand,  she  gave  a  touch  to  the  back  hair  of 
one  of  the  waxen  ladies — the  right-hand  one,  the 
blond. 

A  couple  of  hours  later,  rising  from  breakfast, 
I  repaired  to  my  little  balcony,  from  which  post  of 
observation  I  instantly  espied  a  figure  stationed  at 
the  hairdresser's  window.  If  I  had  not  recognized 
it  otherwise,  the  absorbed,  contemplative  droop  of 
its  head  would  at  once  have  proved  it  to  be  San- 
guinetti.  "Why  does  he  not  go  inside?"  I  asked 
myself.  "He  can't  look  at  her  properly  out  there." 
At  this  conclusion  he  appeared  himself  to  have 
arrived,  for  he  suddenly  straightened  himself  up 
and  entered  the  establishment.  He  remained  within 
a  long  time.  I  grew  tired  of  waiting  for  him  to 
reappear,  and  went  back  to  my  armchair  to  finish 
reading  the  Debats.  I  had  just  accomplished  this 
somewhat  arduous  feat  when  I  heard  the  lame 
tinkle  of  my  door-bell,  a  few  moments  after  which 
Sanguinetti  was  ushered  in. 

He  really  looked  love-sick :  he  was  pale  and  heavy- 


Theodolinde  131 


eyed.     "My  too-susceptible   friend,"   I   said,  "you 
are  very  far  gone." 

"Yes,"  he  answered:  "I  am  really  in  love.  It 
is  too  ridiculous.  Please  don't  tell  anyone." 

"I  shall  certainly  tell  no  one,"  I  declared.  "But 
it  does  not  seem  to  me  exactly  ridiculous." 

He  gave  me  a  grateful  stare:  "Ah,  if  you  don't 
find  it  so,  tant  inieux." 

"Regrettable,  rather:  that's  what  I  should  call 
it." 

He  gave  me  another  stare :  "You  think  I  can't 
afford  it?" 

"It  is  not  so  much  that." 

"You  think  it  won't  look  well?  I  will  arrange 
it  so  that  the  harshest  critic  will  be  disarmed.  This 
morning,"  he  added  in  a  moment,  "she  looks  lovelier 
than  ever." 

"Yes,  I  have  had  a  glimpse  of  her  myself,"  I 
said.  "And  you  have  been  in  the  shop  ?" 

"I  have  spent  half  an  hour  there.  I  thought  it 
best  to  go  straight  to  the  point." 

"What  did  you  say?' 

"I  said  the  simple  truth — that  I  have  an  intense 
desire  to  possess  her." 

"And  the  hairdresser's  wife?  how  did  she  take 
it?" 

"She  seemed  a  good  deal  amused." 

"Amused,  simply?     Nothing  more?" 


132 Master  Eustace 

"I  think  she  was  a  little  flattered." 

"I  hope  so." 

"Yes,"  my  companion  rejoined,  "for,  after  all, 
her  own  exquisite  taste  is  half  the  business."  To 
this  proposition  I  cordially  assented,  and  San- 
guinetti  went  on:  "But,  after  all,  too,  the  dear 
creature  won't  lose  that  in  coming  to  me.  I  shall 
make  arrangements  to  have  her  hair  dressed  regu 
larly." 

"I  see  that  you  mean  to  do  things  en  prince.  Who 
is  it  that  dresses  her  hair?' 

"The  coiffeur  himself." 

"The  husband?" 

"Exactly.     They  say  he  is  the  best  in  Paris." 

"The  best  husband?"  I  asked. 

"My  dear  fellow,  be  serious — the  best  coiffeur." 

"It  will  certainly  be  very  obliging  of  him." 

"Of  course,"  said  Sanguinetti,  "I  shall  pay  him 

for  his  visits,  as — if — as  if "  And  he  paused 

a  moment. 

"As  if  what?" 

"As  if  she  were  one  of  his  fine  ladies.  His  wife 
tells  me  that  he  goes  to  all  the  duchesses." 

"Of  course,"  I  replied,  "that'will  be  something. 
But  still " 

"You  mean,"  said  my  companion,  "that  I  live  so 
far  away?  I  know  that,  but  I  will  pay  him  his 
cab-fare." 


Theodolinde  133 


I  looked  at  him,  and — I  couldn't  help  it — I  began 
to  laugh.  I  had  never  seen  such  a  strange  mixture 
of  ardor  and  coolness. 

"Ah/'  he  exclaimed,  blushing,  "you  do  think  it 
ridiculous  ?" 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "coming  to  this  point,  I  confess  it 
makes  me  laugh." 

"I  don't  care,"  Sanguinetti  declared  with  amiable 
doggedness :  "I  mean  to  keep  her  to  myself." 

Just  at  this  time  my  attention  was  much  taken  up 
by  the  arrival  in  Paris  of  some  relatives  who  had  no 
great  talent  for  assimilating  their  habits  to  foreign 
customs,  and  who  carried  me  about  in  their  train 
as  cicerone  and  interpreter.  For  three  or  four 
weeks  I  was  constantly  in  their  company,  and  I 
saw  much  less  of  Sanguinetti  that  I  had  done 
before.  He  used  to  appear,  however,  at  odd  mo 
ments  in  my  rooms,  being,  as  may  be  imagined, 
very  often  in  the  neighborhood.  I  always  asked 
him  for  the  latest  tidings  of  his  grand  passion,  which 
had  begun  to  glow  with  a  fervor  that  made  him  per 
fectly  indifferent  to  the  judgment  of  others.  The 
poor  fellow  was  most  sincerely  in  love. 

"Je  suis  tout  a  ma  passion,"  he  would  say  when 
I  asked  him  the  news.  "Until  that  matter  is  settled 
I  can  think  of  nothing  else.  I  have  always  been  so 
when  I  have  wanted  a  thing  intensely.  It  has  be- 


134 Master  Eustace 

come  a  monomania,  a  fixed  idea ;  and  naturally  this 
case  is  not  an  exception." 

He  was  always  going  into  the  shop.  "We  talk 
it  over,"  he  said.  "She  can't  make  up  her  mind." 

"I  can  imagine  the  difficulty,"  I  answered. 

"She  says  it's  a  great  change." 

"I  can  also  imagine  that." 

"I  never  see  the  husband,"  said  Sanguinetti.  "He 
is  always  away  with  his  duchesses.  But  she 
talks  it  over  with  him.  At  first  he  wouldn't  listen 
to  it." 

"Naturally." 

"He  said  it  would  be  an  irreparable  loss.  But 
I  am  in  hopes  he  will  come  round.  He  can  get  on 
very  well  with  the  other." 

"The  other? — the  little  dark  one?  She  is  not 
nearly  so  pretty." 

"Of  course  not.  But  she  isn't  bad  in  her  way. 
I  really  think,"  said  Sanguinetti,  "that  he  will  come 
round.  If  he  does  not,  we  will  do  without  his  con 
sent,  and  take  the  consequences.  He  will  not  be 
sorry,  after  all,  to  have  the  money." 

You  may  be  sure  that  I  felt  plenty  of  surprise  at 
the  business-like  tone  in  which  Sanguinetti  dis 
cussed  this  unscrupulous  project  of  becoming  the 
"possessor"  of  another  man's  wife.  There  was  cer 
tainly  no  hypocrisy  about  it:  he  had  quite  passed 
beyond  the  stage  at  which  it  is  deemed  needful  to 


Theodolinde  135 


throw  a  sop  to  propriety.  But  I  said  to  myself  that 
this  was  doubtless  the  Parisian  tone,  and  that  since 
it  had  made  its  mark  upon  so  perfect  a  little  model 
of  social  orthodoxy  as  my  estimable  friend,  nothing 
was  more  possible  than  that  I  too  should  become 
equally  perverted.  Whenever,  after  this,  San- 
guinetti  came  in,  he  had  something  to  say  at  first 
about  the  lovely  creature  across  the  way.  "Have 
you  noticed  her  this  morning?"  he  would  demand. 
"She  is  really  enchanting.  I  thought  of  asking 
leave  to  kiss  her." 

"I  wonder  you  should  ask  leave,"  I  answered.  "I 
should  suppose  you  would  do  it  without  leave,  and 
count  upon  being  forgiven." 

"I  am  afraid  of  hurting  her,"  he  said.  "And 
then  if  I  should  be  seen  from  the  street,  it  would 
look  rather  absurd." 

I  could  only  say  that  he  seemed  to  me  a  very 
odd  mixture  of  audacity  and  discretion,  but  he  went 
on  without  heeding  my  comments:  "You  may 
laugh  at  the  idea,  but,  upon  my  word,  to  me  she  is 
different  every  day :  she  has  never  the  same  expres 
sion.  Sometimes  she's  a  little  melancholy — some 
times  she's  in  high  spirits." 

"I  should  say  she  was  always  smiling." 

"Superficially,  yes/'  said  Sanguinetti.  "That's  all 
the  vulgar  see.  But  there's  something  beneath  it — 
the  most  delicious  little  pensive  look.  At  bottom 


136 Master  Eustace 

she's  sad.  She's  weary  of  her  position  there,  it's  so 
public." 

"Yesterday  she  was  very  pale/'  he  would  say  at 
another  time.  "I'm  sure  she  wants  rest.  That  con 
stant  movement  can't  be  good  for  her.  It's  true/* 
he  added,  "that  she  moves  very  slowly." 

"Yes,"  said  I,  "she  seemed  to  me  to  move  very 
slowly." 

"And  so  beautifully!  Still,  with  me,"  Sanguinetti 
went  on,  "she  shall  be  perfectly  quiet:  I  will  see 
how  that  suits  her." 

"I  should  think,"  I  objected,  "that  she  would 
need  a  little  exercise." 

He  stared  a  moment,  and  then  accused  me,  as 
he  often  did,  of  "making  game  of  him."  "There 
is  something  in  your  tone  in  saying  that,"  he  de 
clared;  but  he  very  shortly  afterward  forgot  my 
sarcastic  tendencies,  and  came  to  announce  to  me 
a  change  in  the  lady's  coiffure :  "Have  you  noticed 
that  she  has  her  hair  dressed  differently?  I  don't 
know  that  I  like  it :  it  covers  up  her  forehead.  But 
it's  beautifully  done,  it's  entirely  new,  and  you  will 
see  that  it  will  set  the  fashion  for  all  Paris." 

"Do  they  take  the  fashion  from  her?"  I  asked. 

"Always.  All  the  knowing  people  keep  a  note  of 
her  successive  coiffures." 

"And  when  you  have  carried  her  off,  what  will 
the  knowing  people  do?" 


Theodolinde  137 


"They  will  go  by  the  other,  the  dark  one — 
Mademoiselle  Clementine." 

"Is  that  her  name  ?  And  the  name  of  your  sweet 
heart?" 

Sanguinetti  looked  at  me  an  instant  with  his  usual 
helplessly  mistrustful  little  blush,  and  then  he  an 
swered,  "Theodolinde." 

When  I  asked  him  how  his  suit  was  prospering, 
he  usually  replied  that  he  believed  it  to  be  merely  a 
question  of  time.  "We  keep  talking  it  over,  and 
in  that  way,  at  any  rate,  I  can  see  her.  The  poor 
woman  can't  get  used  to  the  idea." 

"I  should  think  not." 

"She  says  it  would  change  everything — that  the 
shop  would  be  a  different  place  without  her.  She 
is  so  well  known,  so  universally  admired.  I  tell  her 
that  it  will  not  be  impossible  to  get  a  clever  sub 
stitute;  and  she  answers  that,  clever  as  the  sub 
stitute  may  be,  she  will  never  have  the  peculiar  charm 
of  Theodolinde." 

"Ah!  she  herself  is  aware  then  of  this  peculiar 
charm?" 

"Perfectly,  and  it  delights  her  to  have  me  talk 
about  it." 

A  part  of  the  charm's  peculiarity,  I  reflected,  was 
that  it  was  not  spoiled  by  the  absence  of  modesty; 
yet  I  also  remembered  the  coiffeur's  handsome  wife 
had  looked  extremely  modest.  Sanguinetti,  how- 


138 Master  Eustace 

ever,  appeared  bent  upon  ministering  to  her  vanity : 
I  learned  that  he  was  making  her  presents.  "I  have 
given  her  a  pair  of  earrings,"  he  announced,  "and 
she  is  wearing  them  now.  Do  notice  them  as  you 
pass.  They  are  great  big  amethysts,  and  are  ex 
tremely  becoming." 

I  looked  out  for  our  beautiful  friend  the  next 
time  I  left  the  house,  but  she  was  not  visible  through 
the  hairdresser's  window.  Her  plainer  companion 
was  waiting  upon  a  fine  lady,  presumably  one  of 
the  duchesses,  while  Madame  Theodolinde  herself, 
I  supposed,  was  posturing  before  one  of  the  mirrors 
in  the  inner  apartment  with  Sanguinetti's  big  ame 
thysts  in  her  ears. 

One  day  he  told  me  that  he  had  determined  to 
buy  her  a  parure,  and  he  greatly  wished  I  would 
come  and  help  him  choose  it.  I  called  him  an  ex 
travagant  dog,  but  I  good-naturedly  consented  to 
accompany  him  to  the  jeweler's.  He  led  me  to  the 
Palais  Royal,  and  there,  somewhat  to  my  surprise, 
introduced  me  into  one  of  those  dazzling  little  shops 
which  wear  upon  their  front  in  neat  gilt  letters 
the  candid  announcement,  "Imitation."  Here  you 
may  purchase  any  number  of  glittering  gems  for 
the  most  trifling  sum,  and  indulge  at  a  moderate 
expense  a  pardonable  taste  for  splendor.  And  the 
splendor  is  most  effective,  the  glitter  of  the  counter 
feit  jewels  most  natural.  It  is  only  the  sentiment 


Theodolinde  139 


of  the  thing,  you  say  to  yourself,  that  prevents  you 
from  making  all  your  purchases  of  jewelry  in  one 
of  these  convenient  establishments;  though,  indeed, 
as  their  proprietors  very  aptly  remark,  five  thou 
sand  dollars  more  is  a  good  deal  to  pay  for  senti 
ment.  Of  this  expensive  superstition,  however,  I 
should  have  expected  Sanguinetti  to  be  guilty. 

"You  are  not  going  to  get  a  real  set  ?"  I  asked. 

He  seemed  a  little  annoyed :  "Wouldn't  you  in 
that  case  blow  me  up  for  my  extravagance?" 

"It  is  highly  probable.  And  yet  a  present  of 
false  jewelry !  The  handsomer  it  is,  you  know,  the 
more  ridiculous  it  is." 

"I  have  thought  of  that,"  said  my  friend,  "and 
I  confess  I  am  rather  ashamed  of  myself.  I  should 
like  to  give  her  a  real  set.  But,  you  see,  I  want 
diamonds  and  sapphires,  and  a  real  set  such  as  I 
desire  would  cost  about  twenty  thousand  dollars. 

That's  a  good  deal  for — for "  And  he  paused 

a  moment. 

"For  a  barber's  wife,"  I  said  to  myself. 

"Besides,"  my  companion  added,  "she  won't  know 
the  difference."  I  thought  he  rather  under-esti 
mated  her  intelligence :  a  pretty  Parisienne  was,  by 
instinct,  a  judge  of  parures.  I  remembered,  how 
ever,  that  he  had  rarely  spoken  of  this  lady's  intel 
lectual  qualities :  he  had  dwelt  exclusively  upon  her 
beauty  and  sweetness.  So  I  stood  by  him  while  he 


140 Master  Eustace 

purchased  for  two  hundred  francs  a  gorgeous  neck 
lace  and  coronet  of  the  stones  of  Golconda.  His 
passion  was  an  odd  affair  altogether,  and  an  oddity 
the  more  or  the  less  hardly  mattered.  He  remarked, 
moreover,  that  he  had  at  home  a  curious  collection 
of  artificial  gems,  and  that  these  things  would  be 
an  interesting  addition  to  his  stock.  "I  shall  make 
her  wear  them  all,"  he  exclaimed ;  and  I  wondered 
how  she  would  like  it. 

He  told  me  afterwards  that  his  offering  had  been 
most  gratefully  received,  that  she  was  now  wearing 
the  wonderful  necklace,  and  that  she  looked  lovelier 
than  ever. 

That  evening,  however,  I  stopped  before  the  shop 
to  catch  a  glimpse,  if  possible,  of  the  barber's  lady 
thus  splendidly  adorned.  I  had  seldom  been  fortu 
nate  enough  to  espy  her,  and  on  this  occasion  I 
turned  away  disappointed.  Just  as  I  was  doing  so 
I  perceived  something  which  suggested  that  she  was 
making  a  fool  of  my  amiable  friend.  On  the  radiant 
bosom  of  one  of  the  great  waxen  dolls  in  her  win 
dow  glittered  a  necklace  of  brilliants  which  bore  a 
striking  resemblance  to  the  article  I  had  helped 
Sanguinetti  to  select.  She  had  made  over  her 
lover's  tribute  to  this  rosy  effigy,  to  whom,  it  must 
be  confessed,  it  was  very  becoming. 

Yet,  for  all  this,  I  was  out  in  my  calculation.  A 
week  later  Sanguinetti  came  into  my  rooms  with  a 


Theodolinde  141 


radiant  countenance,  and  announced  to  me  the  con 
summation  of  his  dream.  "She  is  mine!  she  is 
mine!  mine  only!"  he  cried,  dropping  into  a  chair. 

"She  has  left  the  shop?"  I  demanded. 

"Last  night — at  eleven  o'clock.  We  went  off  in 
a  cab." 

"You  have  her  at  home  ?" 

"For  ever  and  ever!"  he  declared  ecstatically. 

"My  dear  fellow,  my  compliments !" 

"It  was  not  an  easy  matter,"  he  went  on.  "But 
I  held  her  in  my  arms." 

I  renewed  my  compliments,  and  said  I  hoped  she 
was  happy;  and  he  declared  that  she  was  smiling 
more  than  ever.  Positively!  And  he  added  that  I 
must  immediately  come  and  see  her :  he  was  im 
patient  to  present  me.  Nothing,  I  answered,  would 
give  me  greater  pleasure,  but  meanwhile  what  did 
the  husband  say? 

"He  grumbles  a  bit,"  said  Sanguinetti,  "but  I 
gave  him  five  hundred  francs." 

"You  have  got  off  easily,"  I  said ;  and  I  promised 
that  at  my  first  moment  of  leisure  I  would  call  upon 
my  friend's  new  companion.  I  saw  him  three  or 
four  times  before  this  moment  arrived,  and  he 
assured  me  that  she  had  made  a  happy  man  of 
him.  "Whenever  I  have  greatly  wanted  a  thing, 
waited  for  it,  and  at  last  got  it,  I  have  always  been 
in  bliss  for  a  month  afterward,"  he  said.  "But 


142 Master  Eustace 

I  think  that  this  time  my  pleasure  will  really  last/' 

"It  will  last  as  long,  I  hope,  as  she  does  herself/' 
I  answered. 

"I  am  sure  it  will.  This  is  the  sort  of  thing — 
yes,  smile  away — in  which  I  get  my  happiness." 

"Vous  n'etes  pas  difficile,"  I  rejoined. 

"Of  course  she's  perishable,"  he  added  in  a  mo 
ment. 

"Ah !"  said  I,  "you  must  take  good  care  of  her." 

And  a  day  or  two  later,  on  his  coming  for  me, 
I  went  with  him  to  his  apartment.  His  rooms  were 
charming,  and  lined  from  ceiling  to  floor  with  the 
"pretty  things"  of  the  occupant — tapestries  and 
bronzes,  terra-cotta  medallions  and  precious  speci 
mens  of  porcelain.  There  were  cabinets  and  tables 
charged  with  similar  treasures :  the  place  was  a  per 
fect  little  museum.  Sanguinetti  led  me  through  two 
or  three  rooms,  and  then  stopped  near  a  window, 
close  to  which,  half  hidden  by  the  curtain,  stood  a 
lady,  with  her  head  turned  away  from  us,  looking 
out.  In  spite  of  our  approach,  she  stood  motion 
less  until  my  friend  went  up  to  her  and  with  a 
gallant,  affectionate  movement  placed  his  arm  round 
her  waist.  Hereupon  she  slowly  turned  and  gazed 
at  me  with  a  beautiful  brilliant  face  and  large  quiet 
eyes. 

"It  is  a  pity  she  creaks,"  said  my  companion  as 
I  was  making  my  bow.  And  then,  as  I  made  it, 


Theodolinde  143 


I  perceived  with  amazement — and  amusement — the 
cause  of  her  creaking.  She  existed  only  from  the 
waist  upward,  and  the  skirt  of  her  dress  was  a  very 
neat  pedestal  covered  with  red  velvet.  Sanguinetti 
gave  another  loving  twist,  and  she  slowly  revolved 
again,  making  a  little  gentle  squeal.  She  exhibited 
the  back  of  her  head,  with  its  beautifully  braided 
tresses  resting  upon  her  sloping  waxen  shoulders. 
She  was  the  right-hand  effigy  of  the  coiffeur's  win 
dow — the  blond!  Her  movement,  as  Sanguinetti 
had  claimed,  was  particularly  commendable,  and  of 
all  his  pretty  things  she  was  certainly  the  prettiest. 


A   LIGHT    MAN 


A   LIGHT    MAN 

And  I — what  I  seem  to  my  friend,  you  see — 
What  I  soon  shall  seem  to  his  love,  you  guess. 

What  I  seem  to  myself,  do  you  ask  of  me? 
No  hero,  I  confess. 

A  LIGHT  WOMAN.    BROWNING'S  MEN  AND  WOMEN. 

APRIL  4,  1857. — I  have  changed  my  sky  with 
out  changing  my  mind.  I  resume  these  old 
notes  in  a  new  world.  I  hardly  know  of 
what  use  they  are;  but  it's  easier  to  preserve  the 
habit  than  to  break  it.  I  have  been  at  home  now  a 
week — at  home,  forsooth!  And  yet  after  all,  it  is 
home.  Pm  dejected,  I'm  bored,  I'm  blue.  How 
can  a  man  be  more  at  home  than  that?  Neverthe 
less,  I'm  the  citizen  of  a  great  country,  and  for  that 
matter,  of  a  great  city.  I  walked  to-day  some  ten 
miles  or  so  along  Broadway,  and  on  the  whole  I 
don't  blush  for  my  native  land.  We're  a  capable 
race  and  a  good-looking  withal ;  and  I  don't  see  why 
we  shouldn't  prosper  as  well  as  another.  This,  by 
the  way,  ought  to  be  a  very  encouraging  reflection. 

147 


148 Master  Eustace 

A  capable  fellow  and  a  good-looking  withal ;  I  don't 
see  why  he  shouldn't  die  a  millionnaire.  At  all 
events  he  must  set  bravely  to  work.  When  a  man 
has,  at  thirty-two,  a  net  income  of  considerably  less 
than  nothing,  he  can  scarcely  hope  to  overtake  a 
fortune  before  he  himself  is  overtaken  by  age  and 
philosophy- — two  deplorable  obstructions.  I'm 
afraid  that  one  of  them  has  already  planted  itself  in 
my  path.  What  am  I?  What  do  I  wish?  Whither 
do  I  tend?  What  do  I  believe?  I  am  constantly 
beset  by  these  impertinent  whisperings.  Formerly 
it  was  enough  that  I  was  Maximus  Austin;  that  I 
was  endowed  with  a  cheerful  mind  and  a  good 
digestion;  that  one  day  or  another,  when  I  had 
come  to  the  end,  I  should  return  to  America  and 
begin  at  the  beginning;  that,  meanwhile,  existence 
was  sweet  in — in  the  Rue  Tranchet.  But  now! 
Has  the  sweetness  really  passed  out  of  life?  Have 
I  eaten  the  plums  and  left  nothing  but  the  bread 
and  milk  and  corn-starch,  or  whatever  the  horrible 
concoction  is? — we  had  it  to-day  for  dinner. 
Pleasure,  at  least,  I  imagine — pleasure  pure  and 
simple,  pleasure  crude,  brutal  and  vulgar — this  poor 
flimsy  delusion  has  lost  all  its  prettiness.  I  shall 
never  again  care  for  certain  things — and  indeed  for 
certain  persons.  Of  such  things,  of  such  persons,  I 
firmly  maintain,  however,  that  I  was  never  an  en 
thusiastic  votary.  It  would  be  more  to  my  credit, 


A  Light  Man 149 

I. suppose,  if  I  had  been.  More  would  be  forgiven 
me  if  I  had  loved  a  little  more,  if  into  all  my  folly 
and  egotism  I  had  put  a  little  more  naivete  and  sin 
cerity.  Well,  I  did  the  best  I  could,  I  was  at  once 
too  bad  and  too  good  for  it  all.  At  present,  if  s  far 
enough  off;  I've  put  the  sea  between  us.  I'm 
stranded.  I  sit  high  and  dry,  scanning  the  horizon 
for  a  friendly  sail,  or  waiting  for  a  high  tide  to  set 
me  afloat.  The  wave  of  pleasure  has  planted  me 
here  in  the  sand.  Shall  I  owe  my  rescue  to  the  wave 
of  pain?  At  moments  my  heart  throbs  with  a  sort 
of  ecstatic  longing  to  expiate  my  stupid  peccadil 
loes.  I  see,  as  through  a  glass,  darkly,  the  beauty 
of  labor  and  love.  Decidedly,  I'm  willing  to  work. 
It's  written. 

7th. — My  sail  is  in  sight ;  it's  at  hand ;  I've  all  but 
boarded  the  vessel.  I  received  this  morning  a  letter 
from  the  best  man  in  the  world.  Here  it  is : 


DEAR  MAX  :  I  see  this  very  moment,  in  the  old  newspaper 
which  had  already  passed  through  my  hands  without  yielding 
up  its  most  precious  item,  the  announcement  of  your  arrival 
in  New  York.  To  think  of  your  having  perhaps  missed  the 
grasp  of  my  hand.  Here  it  is,  dear  Max — to  rap  on  the 
knuckles,  if  you  like.  When  I  say  I  have  just  read  of  your 
arrival,  I  mean  that  twenty  minutes  have  elapsed  by  the  clock. 
These  have  been  spent  in  conversation  with  my  excellent 
friend  Mr.  Frederick  Sloane — your  excellent  self  being  the 
subject.  I  haven't  time  to  say  more  about  Mr.  Sloane  than 
that  he  is  very  anxious  to  make  your  acquaintance,  and  that, 
if  your  time  is  not  otherwise  predestined,  he  would  esteem 
it  a  particular  favor  to  have  you  pass  a  month  under  his  roof 
— the  ample  roof  which  covers  my  own  devoted  head.  It  ap- 


150 Master  Eustace 

pears  that  he  knew  your  mother  very  intimately,  and  he  has  a 
taste  for  visiting  the  amenities  of  the  parents  upon  the  chil 
dren  ;  the  original  ground  of  my  own  connection  with  him 
was  that  he  had  been  a  particular  friend  of  my  father.  You 
may  have  heard  your  mother  speak  of  him — a  perfect  eccen 
tric,  but  a  charming  one.  He  will  make  you  most  welcome. 
But  whether  or  no  you  come  for  his  sake,  come  for  mine. 
I  have  a  hundred  questions  on  the  end  of  my  pen,  but  I  can't 
drop  them,  lest  I  should  lose  the  mail.  You'll  not  refuse  me 
without  an  excellent  reason,  and  I  shan't  excuse  you,  even 
then.  So  the  sooner  the  better.  Yours  more  than  ever, 

THEODORE  LISLE. 


Theodore's  letter  is  of  course  very  kind,  but  it's 
perfectly  obscure.  My  mother  may  have  had  the 
highest  regards  for  Mr.  Sloane,  but  she  never  men 
tioned  his  name  in  my  hearing.  Who  is  he,  what 
is  he,  and  what  is  the  nature  of  his  relations  with 
Theodore?  I  shall  learn  betimes.  I  have  written 
to  Theodore  that  I  gladly  accept  (I  believe  I  sup 
pressed  the  "gladly"  though)  his  friend's  invita 
tion,  and  that  I  shall  immediately  present  myself. 
What  better  can  I  do?  I  shall,  at  the  narrowest 
calculation,  obtain  food  and  lodging  while  I  invoke 
the  fates.  I  shall  have  a  basis  of  operations.  D., 
it  appears,  is  a  long  day's  journey,  but  delicious 
•  when  you  reach  it.  I'm  curious  to  see  a  delicious 
\ American  town.  And  a  month's  stay!  Mr.  Fred 
erick  Sloane,  whoever  you  are,  vous  faites  bien  les 
chose s,  and  the  little  that  I  know  of  you  is  very  much 
to  your  credit.  You  enjoyed  the  friendship  of  my 
dear  mother,  you  possess  the  esteem  of  my  incom- 


A   Light  Man 151 

parable  Theodore,  you  commend  yourself  to  my  own 
affection.    At  this  rate,  I  shan't  grudge  it. 

D ,  1 4th. — I  have  been  here  since  Thursday 

evening — three  days.  As  we  rattled  up  to  the 
tavern  in  the  village,  I  perceived  from  the  top  of 
the  coach,  in  the  twilight,  Theodore  beneath  the 
porch,  scanning  the  vehicle,  with  all  his  affectionate 
soul  in  his  eyes.  I  made  hardly  more  than  two  down 
ward  strides  into  his  arms — or,  at  all  events,  into 
his  hands.  He  has  grown  older,  of  course,  in  these 
five  years,  but  less  so  than  I  had  expected.  His  is 
one  of  those  smooth  unwrinkled  souls  that  infuse 
a  perennial  fairness  and  freshness  into  the  body. 
As  tall  as  ever,  moreover,  and  as  lean  and  clean. 
How  short  and  fat  and  dark  and  debauched  he 
makes  one  feel !  By  nothing  he  says  or  means,  of 
course,  but  merely  by  his  old  unconscious  purity  and 
simplicity — that  slender  aspiring  rectitude  which 
makes  him  remind  you  of  the  tower  of  an  English 
abbey.  He  greeted  me  with  smiles,  and  stares,  and 
formidable  blushes.  He  assures  me  that  he  never 
would  have  known  me,  and  that  five  years  have 
quite  transformed  my  physiognomy.  I  asked  him 
if  it  was  for  the  better?  He  looked  at  me  hard 
for  a  moment,  with  his  eyes  of  blue,  and  then,  for 
all  answer,  he  blushed  again. 

On  my  arrival  we  agreed  to  walk  over  from  the 
village.     He  dismissed  his  wagon  with  my  trunk, 


152 Master  Eustace 

and  we  went  arm-in-arm  through  the  dusk.  The 
town  is  seated  at  the  foot  of  certain  mountains, 
whose  names  I  have  yet  to  learn,  and  at  the  head  of 
a  vast  sheet  of  water  which,  as  yet,  too,  I  know 
only  as  "The  Lake."  The  road  hitherward  soon 
leaves  the  village  and  wanders  in  rural  loveliness  by 
the  lakeside.  Sometimes  the  water  is  hidden  by 
clumps  of  trees,  behind  which  we  heard  it  lapping 
and  gurgling  in  the  darkness ;  sometimes  it  stretches 
out  from  your  feet  in  unspotted  beauty,  offering  its 
broad  white  bosom  to  the  embrace  of  the  dark  fra 
ternal  hills.  The  walk  from  the  tavern  takes  some 
half  an  hour,  in  which  space  Theodore  had  explained 
his  position  to  my  comparative  satisfaction.  Mr. 
Sloane  is  old,  widowed  and  rich ;  his  age  is  seventy- 
two,  and  as  his  health  is  thoroughly  broken,  is  prac 
tically  even  greater;  and  his  fortune — Theodore, 
characteristically,  doesn't  know  its  numerical  for 
mula.  It's  probably  a  round  million.  He  has  lived 
much  abroad,  and  in  the  thick  of  things;  he  has 
had  adventures  and  passions  and  all  that  sort  of 
thing;  and  now,  in  the  evening  of  his  days,  like  an 
old  French  diplomat,  he  takes  it  into  his  head  to 
write  his  memoirs.  To  this  end  he  has  taken  poor 
Theodore  to  his  generous  side,  to  serve  as  his  guide, 
philosopher  and  friend.  He  has  been  a  great 
scribbler,  says  Theodore,  all  his  days,  and  he  pro 
poses  to  incorporate  a  large  amount  of  promiscuous 


A  Light  Man  153 

literary  matter  into  this  singular  record  of  his 
existence.  Theodore's  principal  function  seems  to 
be  to  get  him  to  leave  things  out.  In  fact,  the  poor 
boy  seems  troubled  in  conscience.  His  patron's 
lucubrations  have  taken  the  turn  of  all  memoirs, 
and  become  tout  bonnement  immoral.  On  the 
whole,  he  declares  they  are  a  very  odd  mixture — a 
jumble  of  pretentious  trash  and  of  excellent  good 
sense.  I  can  readily  understand  it.  The  old  man 
bores  me,  puzzles  me,  and  amuses  me. 

He  was  in  waiting  to  receive  me.  We  found 
him  in  his  library — which,  by  the  way,  is  simply 
the  most  delightful  apartment  that  I  ever  smoked 
a  cigar  in — a  room  for  a  lifetime.  At  one  end 
stands  a  great  fireplace,  with  a  florid,  fantastic 
mantel-piece  in  carved  white  marble — an  importa 
tion,  of  course,  and  as  one  may  say,  an  interpola 
tion;  the  groundwork  of  the  house,  the  "fixtures," 
being  throughout  plain,  solid  and  domestic.  Over 
the  mantel-shelf  is  a  large  landscape  painting,  a  soi- 
disant  Gainsborough,  full  of  the  mellow  glory  of 
an  English  summer.  Beneath  it  stands  a  fantastic 
litter  of  French  bronzes  and  outlandish  chinoiseries. 
Facing  the  door,  as  you  enter,  is  a  vast  window  set 
in  a  recess,  with  cushioned  seats  and  large  clear 
panes,  stationed  as  it  were  at  the  very  apex  of  the 
lake  (which  forms  an  almost  perfect  oval)  and  com 
manding  a  view  of  its  whole  extent.  At  the  other 


154 Master  Eustace 

end,  opposite  the  fire-place,  the  wall  is  studded,  from 
floor  to  ceiling,  with  choice  foreign  paintings,  placed 
in  relief  against  the  orthodox  crimson  screen. 
Elsewhere  the  walls  are  covered  with  books,  ar 
ranged  neither  in  formal  regularity  nor  quite 
helter-skelter,  but  in  a  sort  of  genial  mutual  incon 
gruity,  which  tells  that  sooner  or  later  each  volume 
feels  sure  of  leaving  the  ranks  and  returning  into 
different  company.  Mr.  Sloane  uses  his  books. 
His  two  passions,  according  to  Theodore,  are  read 
ing  and  talking;  but  to  talk  he  must  have  a  book 
in  his  hand.  The  charm  of  the  room  lies  in  the 
absence  of  the  portentous  soberness — the  browns, 
and  blacks,  and  greys — which  distinguish  most 
rooms  of  its  class.  It's  a  sort  of  female  study. 
There  are  half  a  dozen  light  colors  scattered  about 
— pink  in  the  carpet,  tender  blue  in  the  curtains, 
yellow  in  the  chairs.  The  result  is  a  general 
look  of  brightness,  and  lightness,  and  unpe- 
dantic  elegance.  You  perceive  the  place  to  be 
the  home,  not  of  a  man  of  learning,  but  of  a 
man  of  fancy. 

He  rose  from  his  chair — the  man  of  fancy,  to 
greet  me — the  man  of  fact.  As  I  looked  upon  him, 
in  the  lamp-light,  it  seemed  to  me,  for  the  first  five 
minutes,  that  I  had  seldom  seen  a  worse-favored 
human  creature.  It  took  me  then  five  minutes  to 
get  the  point  of  view ;  then  I  began  to  admire.  He 


^ A   Light  Man 155 

is  under-sized,  or  at  best  of  my  own  moderate 
stature,  bent  and  contracted  with  years ;  thin,  how 
ever,  where  I  am  stout,  and  light  where  I  am  heavy. 
In  color  we're  about  equally  dark.  Mr.  Sloane, 
however,  is  curiously  pale,  with  a  dead  opaque  yellow 
pallor.  Literally,  it's  a  magnificent  yellow.  His 
skin  is  of  just  the  hue  and  apparent  texture  of  some 
old  crumpled  Oriental  scroll.  I  know  a  dozen 
painters  who  would  give  more  than  they  have  to  ar 
rive  at  the  exact  "tone"  of  his  thick-veined  saffron- 
colored  hands — his  polished  ivory  knuckles.  His 
eyes  are  circled  with  red,  but  within  their  unhealthy 
orbits  they  scintillate  like  black  diamonds.  His 
nose,  owing  to  the  falling  away  of  other  portions 
of  his  face,  has  assumed  a  grotesque,  unnatural 
prominence ;  it  describes  an  immense  arch,  gleaming 
like  parchment  stretched  on  ivory.  He  has  kept  his 
teeth,  but  replaced  his  hair  by  a  dead  black  wig;  of 
course  he's  clean  shaven.  In  his  dress  he  has  a 
muffled,  wadded  look,  and  an  apparent  aversion  to 
linen,  inasmuch  as  none  is  visible  on  his  person.  He 
seems  neat  enough,  but  not  fastidious.  At  first, 
as  I  say,  I  fancied  him  monstrously  ugly;  but  on 
further  acquaintance  I  perceived  that  what  I  had 
taken  for  ugliness  is  nothing  but  the  incomplete  re 
mains  of  remarkable  good  looks.  The  lines  of  his 
features  are  delicate ;  his  nose,  ceteris  paribus,  would 
be  extremely  handsome ;  his  eyes  are  the  eyes  of  a 


156  Master  Eustace 


mind,  not  of  a  body.  There  is  intelligence  on  his 
brow  and  sweetness  on  his  lips. 

He  offered  his  two  hands,  as  Theodore  intro 
duced  me ;  I  gave  him  my  own,  and  he  stood  smiling 
upon  me  like  some  quaint  old  image  in  ivory  and 
ebony,  scanning  my  face  with  the  sombre  sparkle 
of  his  gaze.  "Good  heaven !"  he  said,  at  last,  "how 
much  you  look  like  your  father."  I  sat  down,  and 
for  half  an  hour  we  talked  of  many  things;  of  my 
journey,  of  my  impressions  of  home,  of  my  remi 
niscences  of  Europe,  and,  by  implication,  of  my 
prospects.  His  voice  is  aged  and  cracked,  but  he 
uses  it  with  immense  energy.  Mr.  Sloane  is  not  yet 
in  his  dotage,  by  a  long  shot.  He  nevertheless 
makes  himself  out  a  woefully  old  man.  In  reply 
to  an  inquiry  I  made  about  his  health,  he  fa 
vored  me  with  a  long  list  of  his  infirmities 
(some  of  which  are  very  trying,  certainly)  and 
assured  me  that  he  had  but  a  mere  pinch  of  vitality 
left. 

"I  live,"  he  said,  "out  of  mere  curiosity." 

"I  have  heard  of  people  dying,"  I  answered,  "from 
the  same  motive." 

He  looked  at  me  a  moment,  as  if  to  ascertain 
whether  I  was  making  light  of  his  statement.  And 
then,  after  a  pause,  "Perhaps  you  don't  know," 
said  he,  with  a  certain  vague  pomposity,  "that  I 
disbelieve  in  a  future  life." 


A  Light  Man 157 

Poor  Theodore!  at  these  words  he  got  up  and 
walked  to  the  fire. 

"Well,  we  shan't  quarrel  about  that,"  said  I. 
Theodore  turned  round,  staring. 

"Do  you  mean  that  you  agree  with  me  ?"  the  old 
man  asked. 

"I  certainly  haven't  come  here  to  talk  theology. 
Dear  me,  Mr.  Sloane,"  I  said,  "don't  ask  me  to 
disbelieve,  and  I'll  never  ask  you  to  believe." 

"Come,"  cried  Mr.  Sloane,  rubbing  his  hands, 
"you'll  not  persuade  me  you're  a  Christian — like 
your  friend  Theodore  there." 

"Like  Theodore — assuredly  not."  And  then, 
somehow,  I  don't  know  why,  at  the  thought  of 
Theodore's  Christianism ,  I  burst  into  a  laugh. 
"Excuse  me,  my  dear  fellow,"  I  said,  "you  know, 
for  the  last  ten  years  I  have  lived  in  Catholic 
countries." 

"Good,  good,  good!"  cried  Mr.  Sloane,  rubbing 
his  hands  and  clapping  them  together,  and  laugh 
ing  with  high  relish. 

"Dear  me,"  said  Theodore,  smiling,  but  vaguely 
apprehensive,  too — and  a  little  touched,  perhaps,  by 
my  involuntary  reflection  upon  the  quality  of  his 
faith,  "I  hope  you're  not  a  Roman  Catholic." 

I  saw  the  old  man,  with  his  hands  locked,  eyeing 
me  shrewdly,  and  waiting  for  my  answer.  I  pon 
dered  a  moment  in  mock  gravity.  "I  shall  make  my 


158 Master  Eustace 

confession,"  I  said.  "I've  been  in  the  East,  you 
know.  I'm  a  Mohammedan!" 

Hereupon  Mr.  Sloane  broke  out  into  a  wheezy 
ecstasy  of  glee.  Verily,  I  thought,  if  he  lives  for 
curiosity,  he's  easily  satisfied. 

We  went  into  dinner,  in  the  constitution  of  which 
I  should  have  been  at  loss  to  suggest  the  shadow  of 
an  improvement.  I  observed,  by  the  way,  that  for 
a  victim  of  paralysis,  neuralgia,  dyspepsia,  and  a 
thousand  other  ills,  Mr.  Sloane  plies  a  most  incon 
sequential  knife  and  fork.  Sweets,  and  spices,  and 
condiments  seem  to  be  the  chief  of  his  diet.  After 
dinner  he  dismissed  us,  in  consideration  of  my 
natural  desire  to  see  my  friend  in  private.  Theo 
dore  has  capital  quarters — a  chamber  and  sitting- 
room  as  luxurious  as  a  man  (or  as  a  woman,  for 
that  matter)  could  possibly  wish.  We  talked  till 
near  midnight — of  ourselves  and  of  our  lemon- 
colored  host  below.  That  is,  I  spoke  of  myself, 
and  Theodore  listened ;  and  then  Theodore  told  of 
Mr.  Sloane  and  I  listened.  His  commerce  with  the 
old  man  has  sharpened  his  wits.  Sloane  has  taught 
him  to  observe  and  judge,  and  Theodore  turns 
around,  observes,  judges — him!  He  has  become 
quite  the  critic  and  analyst.  There  is  something 
very  pleasant  in  the  sagacity  of  virtue,  in  discern 
ment  without  bitterness,  penetration  without  spite. 
Theodore  has  all  these  unalloyed  graces,  to  say 


A  Light  Man  159 


nothing  of  an  angelic  charity.  At  midnight  we  re 
paired  to  the  library  to  take  leave  of  our  host  till  the 
morrow — an  attention  which,  under  all  circum 
stances,  he  formally  exacts.  As  I  gave  him  my 
hand  he  held  it  again  and  looked  at  me  as  he  had 
done  on  my  arrival.  "Good  heaven/'  he  said,  at 
last,  "how  much  you  look  like  your  mother!" 

To-night,  at  the  end  of  my  third  day,  I  begin  to 
feel  decidedly  at  home.  The  fact  is,  I'm  supremely 
comfortable.  The  house  is  pervaded  by  an  indefin 
able,  irresistible  air  of  luxury  and  privacy.  Mr. 
Frederick  Sloane  must  be  a  horribly  corrupt  old 
mortal.  Already  in  his  hateful,  delightful  presence 
I  have  become  heartily  reconciled  to  doing  nothing. 
But  with  Theodore  on  one  side,  I  honestly  believe 
I  can  defy  Mr.  Sloane  on  the  other.  The  former 
asked  me  this  morning,  with  real  solicitude,  in 
allusion  to  the  bit  of  dialogue  I  have  quoted  above 
on  matters  of  faith,  if  I  had  actually  ceased  to  care 
for  divine  things.  I  assured  him  that  I  would 
rather  utterly  lose  my  sense  of  the  picturesque,  than 
do  anything  to  detract  from  the  splendor  of  religious 
worship.  Some  of  the  happiest  hours  of  my  life, 
I  told  him,  have  been  spent  in  cathedrals.  He  looked 
at  me  awhile,  in  friendly  sadness.  "I  hardly  know," 
he  said,  "whether  you  are  worse  than  Mr.  Sloane, 
or  better." 

But  Theodore  is,  after  all,  in  duty  bound  to  give 


160 Master  Eustace 

a  man  a  long  rope  in  these  matters.  His  own  rope 
is  one  of  the  longest.  He  reads  Voltaire  with  Mr. 
Sloane,  and  Emerson  in  his  own  room.  He's  the 
stronger  man  of  the  two;  he  has  the  bigger  stomach. 
Mr.  Sloane  delights,  of  course,  in  Voltaire,  but  he 
can't  read  a  line  of  Emerson.  Theodore  delights 
in  Emerson,  and  has  excellent  taste  in  the  matter  of 
Voltaire.  It  appears  that  since  we  parted  in  Paris, 
five  years  ago,  his  conscience  has  dwelt  in  many 
lands.  C'est  toute  une  histoire — which  he  tells  very 
nicely.  He  left  college  determined  to  enter  the 
ministry,  and  came  abroad  to  lay  the  basis  of  his 
theological  greatness  in  some  German  repository  of 
science.  He  appears  to  have  studied,  not  wisely  but 
too  well.  Instead  of  faith  full-armed  and  serene, 
there  sprang  from  the  labor  of  his  brain  a  myriad 
abortive  doubts,  piping  for  sustenance.  He  went 
for  a  winter  to  Italy,  where,  I  take  it,  he  was  not 
quite  so  much  afflicted  as  he  ought  to  have  been,  at 
the  sight  of  the  beautiful  spiritual  repose  which  he 
had  missed.  It  was  after  this  that  we  spent  those 
three  months  together  in  Brittany — the  best-spent 
three  months  of  my  whole  ten  years  abroad.  Theo 
dore  inoculated  me,  I  think,  with  a  little  of  his 
sacred  fermentation,  and  I  infused  into  his  con 
science  something  of  my  vulgar  indifference;  and 
we  agreed  together  that  there  were  a  few  good 
things  left — health,  friendship,  a  summer  sky,  and 


A   Light  Man 161 

the  lovely  by-ways  of  an  old  French  province.  He 
came  home,  returned  to  theology,  accepted  a  "call," 
and  made  an  attempt  to  respond  to  it.  But  the 
inner  voice  failed  him.  His  outlook  was  cheerless 
enough.  During  his  absence  his  married  sister,  the 
elder  one,  had  taken  the  other  to  live  with  her,  re 
lieving  Theodore  of  the  charge  of  contribution  to 
her  support.  But  suddenly,  behold  the  husband,  the 
brother-in-law,  dies,  leaving  a  mere  fragment  of 
property;  and  the  two  ladies,  with  their  two  little 
girls,  are  afloat  in  the  wide  world.  Theodore  finds 
himself  at  twenty-six  without  an  income,  without  a 
profession,  and  with  a  family  of  four  females  to 
support.  Well,  in  his  quiet  way,  he  draws  on  his 
courage.  The  history  of  the  two  years  which  pre 
ceded  his  initiation  here  is  a  simple  record  of  prac 
tical  manly  devotion.  He  rescued  his  sisters  and 
nieces  from  the  deep  waters,  placed  them  high  and 
dry,  established  them  somewhere  in  decent  gen 
tility — and  then  found  at  last  that  his  strength  had 
left  him — had  dropped  dead  like  an  over-ridden 
horse.  In  short,  he  had  worked  himself  ill.  It  was 
now  his  sisters'  turn.  They  nursed  him  with  all  the 
added  tenderness  of  gratitude  for  the  past  and 
terror  of  the  future,  and  brought  him  safely  through 
a  grievous  malady.  Meanwhile  Mr.  Sloane,  having 
decided  to  treat  himself  to  a  private  secretary  and 
suffered  dreadful  mischance  in  three  successive  ex- 


162 Master  Eustace 

periments,  had  heard  of  Theodore's  situation  and 
his  merits;  had  furthermore  recognized  in  him  the 
son  of  an  early  and  intimate  friend,  and  had  finally 
offered  him  the  very  comfortable  position  which  he 
now  occupies.  There  is  a  decided  incongruity  be 
tween  Theodore  as  a  man — as  Theodore,  in  fine — 
and  the  dear  fellow  as  the  intellectual  agent,  con 
fidant,  complaisant,  purveyor,  pander — what  you 
will — of  a  battered  old  cynic  and  worldly  dilettante. 
There  seems  at  first  sight  a  perfect  want  of  agree 
ment  between  his  character  and  his  function.  One 
is  gold  and  the  other  brass,  or  something  very  like 
it.  But  on  reflection  I  perfectly  conceive  that  he 
should,  under  the  circumstances,  have  accepted  Mr. 
Sloane's  offer  and  been  content  to  do  his  duties. 
Just  heaven !  Theodore's  contentment  in  such  a 
case  is  a  theme  for  the  moralist — a  better  moralist 
than  I.  The  best  and  purest  mortals  are  an  odd 
mixture,  and  in  none  of  us  does  honestly  exist  totus, 
teres,  atque  rotundus.  Ideally,  Theodore  hasn't  the 
smallest  business  dans  cette  galere.  It  offends  my 
sense  of  propriety  to  find  him  here.  I  feel  like  ad 
monishing  him  as  a  friend  that  he  has  knocked  at 
the  wrong  door,  and  that  he  had  better  retreat 
before  he  is  brought  to  the  blush.  Really,  as  I  say, 
I  suppose  he  might  as  well  be  here,  as  reading  Emer 
son  "evenings,"  in  the  back  parlor,  to  those  two 
very  plain  sisters — judging  from  their  photographs. 


A  Light  Man 163 

Practically  it  hurts  no  one  to  compromise  with  his 
tendencies.  Poor  Theodore  was  weak,  depressed, 
out  of  work.  Mr.  Sloane  offers  him  a  lodging  and 
a  salary  in  return  for — after  all,  merely  a  little 
forbearance.  All  he  has  to  do  is  to  read  to  the 
old  man,  lay  down  the  book  awhile,  with  his  finger 
in  the  place,  and  let  him  talk;  take  it  up  again, 
read  another  dozen  pages  and  submit  to  another 
commentary.  Then  to  write  a  dozen  pages  under 
his  dictation — to  suggest  a  word,  polish  off  a 
period,  or  help  him  out  with  a  reluctant  idea  or  a 
half -remembered  fact.  This  is  all,  I  say;  and  yet 
this  is  much.  Theodore's  apparent  success  proves 
it  to  be  much,  as  well  as  the  old  man's  satisfaction. 
It's  a  part ;  he  plays  it.  He  uses  tact ;  he  has  taken 
a  reef  in  his  pride;  he  has  clipped  the  sting  of  his 
conscience,  he  listens,  he  talks,  conciliates,  accom 
modates,  flatters — does  it  as  well  as  many  a  worse 
man — does  it  far  better  than  I.  I  might  dominate 
Mr.  Sloane,  but  I  doubt  that  I  could  serve  him.  But 
after  all,  it's  not  a  matter  of  better  and  worse.  In 
every  son  of  woman  there  are  two  men — the  prac 
tical  man  and  the  dreamer.  We  live  for  our 
dreams — but,  meanwhile,  we  live  by  our  wits. 
When  the  dreamer  is  a  poet,  his  brother  is  an  artist. 
Theodore  is  essentially  a  man  of  taste.  If  he  were 
not  destined  to  become  a  high  priest  among  moral 
ists,  he  might  be  a  prince  among  connoisseurs.  He 


164  Master  Eustace 


plays  his  part  then,  artistically,  with  taste,  with 
relish — with  all  the  finesse  of  his  delicate  fancy. 
How  can  Mr.  Sloane  fail  to  believe  that  he  possesses 
a  paragon?  He  is  no  such  fool  as  to  misconceive  a 
belle  ame  when  a  belle  dme  comes  in  his  way.  He 
confidentially  assured  me  this  morning  that  Theo 
dore  has  the  most  beautiful  mind  in  the  world,  but 
that  it's  a  pity  he's  so  simple  as  not  to  suspect  it. 
If  he  only  doesn't  ruin  him  with  his  flattery! 

1 9th. — I'm  certainly  fortunate  among  men.  This 
morning  when,  tentatively,  I  spoke  of  understaying 
my  month,  Mr.  Sloane  rose  from  his  seat  in  horror, 
and  declared  that  for  the  present  I  must  regard  his 
house  as  my  home.  "Come,  come,"  he  said,  "when 
you  leave  this  place  where  do  you  intend  to  go?" 
Where,  indeed?  I  graciously  allowed  Mr.  Sloane 
to  have  the  best  of  the  argument.  Theodore  assures 
me  that  he  appreciates  these  and  other  affabilities, 
and  that  I  have  made  what  he  calls  a  "conquest"  of 
his  venerable  heart.  Poor,  battered,  bamboozled 
old  organ!  he  would  have  one  believe  that  it  has  a 
most  tragical  record  of  capture  and  recapture.  At 
all  events,  it  appears  that  I'm  master  of  the  citadel. 
For  the  present  I  have  no  wish  to  evacuate.  I 
feel,  nevertheless,  in  some  far-off  corner  of  my 
soul,  that  I  ought  to  shoulder  my  victorious  banner 
and  advance  to  more  fruitful  triumphs. 

I  blush  for  my  slothful  inaction.    It  isn't  that  I'm 


A  Light  Man 165 

willing  to  stay  here  a  month,  but  that  I'm  willing 
to  stay  here  six.  Such  is  the  charming,  disgusting 
truth.  Have  I  actually  outlived  the  age  of  energy? 
Have  I  survived  my  ambition,  my  integrity,  my  self- 
respect?  Verily  I  ought  to  have  survived  the  habit 
of  asking  myself  silly  questions.  I  made  up  my 
mind  long  ago  that  I  care  deeply  for  nothing  save 
my  own  personal  comfort,  and  I  don't  care  for  that 
sufficiently  to  secure  it  at  the  cost  of  acute  tem 
porary  suffering.  I  have  a  passion  for  nothing — 
not  even  for  life.  I  know  very  well  the  appearance 
I  make  in  the  world.  I  pass  for  intelligent,  well- 
informed,  accomplished,  amiable,  strong.  I'm  sup 
posed  to  have  a  keen  relish  for  letters,  for  music, 
for  science,  for  art.  There  was  a  time  when  I 
fancied  I  cared  for  scientific  research;  but  I  know 
now  that  I  care  for  it  as  little  as  I  really  do  for 
Shakespeare,  for  Rubens,  for  Rossini.  When  I 
was  younger,  I  used  to  find  a  certain  entertainment 
in  the  contemplation  of  men  and  women.  I  liked 
to  see  them  hurrying  on  each  other's  heels  across 
the  stage.  But  I'm  sick  and  tired  of  them  now; 
not  that  I'm  a  misanthrope,  God  forbid.  They're 
not  worth  hating.  I  never  knew  but  one  creature 
who  was,  and  her  I  went  and  loved.  To*  be  con 
sistent,  I  ought  to  have  hated  my  mother — and  now 
I  ought  to  hate  Theodore.  But  I  don't — truly,  on 
the  whole,  I  don't — any  more  than  I  love  him.  I 


166 Master  Eustace 

firmly  believe  that  a  large  portion  of  his  happiness 
rests  upon  his  devout  conviction  that  I  really  care 
for  him.  He  believes  in  that,  as  he  believes  in  all 
the  rest  of  it — in  my  knowledge,  my  music,  my  un 
derlying  "earnestness,"  my  sense  of  beauty  and  love 
of  truth.  Oh,  for  a  man  among  them  all — a  fellow 
with  eyes  in  his  head — eyes  that  would  look  me 
through  and  through,  and  flash  out  in  scorn  of  my 
nothingness.  Then,  perhaps,  I  might  answer  him 
with  rage;  then,  perhaps,  I  might  feel  a  simple, 
healthy  emotion. 

In  the  name  of  bare  nutrition — in  the  fear  of 
starvation — what  am  I  to  do?  (I  was  obliged  this 
morning  to  borrow  ten  dollars  from  Theodore,  who 
remembered  gleefully  that  he  has  been  owing  me  no 
less  than  twenty-five  dollars  for  the  past  four  years, 
and  in  fact  has  preserved  a  note  to  this  effect.) 
Within  the  last  week  I  have  hatched  a  desperate 
scheme.  I  have  deliberately  conceived  the  idea  of 
marrying  money.  Why  not  accept  and  utilize  the 
goods  of  the  gods?  It  is  not  my  fault,  after  all,  if 
I  pass  for  a  superior  fellow.  Why  not  admit  that 
practically,  mechanically — as  I  may  say — maritally, 
I  may  be  a  superior  fellow?  I  warrant  myself,  at 
least,  thoroughly  gentle.  I  should  never  beat  my 
wife;  I  doubt  that  I  should  ever  snub  her.  Assume 
that  her  fortune  has  the  proper  number  of  zeros 
and  that  she  herself  is  one  of  them,  and  I  can 


A  Light  Man 167 

actually  imagine  her  adoring  me.  It's  not  impos 
sible  that  I've  hit  the  nail  and  solved  my  riddle. 
Curiously,  as  I  look  back  upon  my  brief  career,  it 
all  seems  to  tend  in  a  certain  way  to  this  consum 
mation.  It  has  its  graceful  curves  and  crooks,  in 
deed,  and  here  and  there  a  passionate  tangent;  but 
on  the  whole,  if  I  were  to  unfold  it  here  a  la  Ho 
garth,  what  better  legend  could  I  scrawl  beneath 
the  series  of  pictures  than  So-and-So's  Progress  to 
a  Mercenary  Marriage? 

Coming  events  do  what  we  all  know  with  their 
shadows.  My  glorious  destiny  is,  perhaps,  not  far 
off.  I  already  feel  throughout  my  person  a  mag 
nificent  languor — as  from  the  possession  of  past 
opulence.  Or  is  it  simply  my  sense  of  perfect  well- 
being  in  this  perfectly  appointed  home  ?  Is  it  simply 
the  absolutely  comfortable  life  I  lead  in  this  delicious 
old  house  ?  At  all  events,  the  house  is  delicious,  and 
my  only  complaint  of  Mr.  Sloane  is,  that  instead  of 
an  old  widower,  he's  not  an  old  widow  (or  I  a 
young  maid),  so  that  I  might  marry  him,  survive 
him,  and  dwell  forever  in  this  rich  and  mellow  home. 
As  I  write  here,  at  my  bedroom  table,  I  have  only 
to  stretch  out  an  arm  and  raise  the  window  curtain, 
to  see  the  thick-planted  garden  budding  and  breath 
ing,  and  growing  in  the  moonshine.  Far  above,  in 
the  liquid  darkness,  sails  the  glory-freighted  orb  of 
the  moon ;  beneath,  in  its  light,  lies  the  lake,  in  mur- 


168 Master  Eustace 

muring,  troubled  sleep;  around  stand  the  gentle 
mountains,  wearing  the  cold  reflection  on  their 
shoulders,  or  hiding  it  away  in  their  glens.  So  much 
for  midnight.  To-morrow  the  sun  will  be  lovely 
with  the  beauty  of  day.  Under  one  aspect  or  an 
other  I  have  it  always  before  me.  At  the  end  of 
the  garden  is  moored  a  boat,  in  which  Theodore 
and  I  have  repeatedly  explored  the  surface  of  the 
lake,  and  visited  the  mild  wilderness  of  its  shores. 
What  lovely  landward  caves  and  bays — what  alder- 
smothered  creeks — what  lily-sheeted  pools — what 
sheer  steep  hillsides,  darkening  the  water  with  the 
downward  image  of  their  earthly  greenness.  I  con 
fess  that  in  these  excursions  Theodore  does  the 
rowing  and  I  the  contemplation.  Mr.  Sloane  avoids 
the  water — on  account  of  the  dampness,  he  says; 
but  because  he's  afraid  of  drowning,  I  suspect. 

22d. — Theodore  is  right.  The  bonhomme  has 
taken  me  into  his  favor.  I  protest  I  don't  see  how 
he  was  to  escape  it.  I  doubt  that  there  has  ever 
been  a  better  flattered  man.  I  don't  blush  for  it. 
In  one  coin  or  another  I  must  repay  his  hospitality 
— which  is  certainly  very  liberal.  Theodore  advises 
him,  helps  him,  comforts  him ;  I  amuse  him,  surprise 
him%  deprave  him.  This  is  speaking  vastly  well  for 
my  power.  He  pretends  to  be  surprised  at  nothing, 
and  to  possess  in  perfection — poor,  pitiable  old  fop 
— the  art  nil  admirari;  but  repeatedly,  I  know,  I 


A  Light  Man 169 

have  clear  outskipped  his  fancy.  As  for  his  de 
pravity,  it's  a  very  pretty  piece  of  wickedness,  but 
it  strikes  me  as  a  purely  intellectual  matter.  I 
imagine  him  never  to  have  had  any  downright 
senses.  He  may  have  been  unclean;  morally,  he's 
not  over  savory  now;  but  he  never  can  have  been 
what  the  French  call  a  viveur.  He's  too  delicate, 
he's  of  a  feminine  turn;  and  what  woman  was  ever 
a  viveur?  He  likes  to  sit  in  his  chair,  and  read 
scandal,  talk  scandal,  make  scandal,  so  far  as  he 
may  without  catching  a  cold  or  incurring  a  head 
ache.  I  already  feel  as  if  I  had  known  him  a  life 
time.  I  read  him  as  clearly,  I  think,  as  if  I  had. 
I  know  the  type  to  which  he  belongs;  I  have  en 
countered,  first  and  last,  a  round  dozen  of  speci 
mens.  He's  neither  more  nor  less  than  a  gossip — 
a  gossip  flanked  by  a  coxcomb  and  an  egotist.  He's 
shallow,  vain,  cold,  superstitious,  timid,  pretentious, 
capricious;  a  pretty  jumble  of  virtues!  And  yet, 
for  all  this,  he  has  his  good  points.  His  caprices 
are  sometimes  generous,  I  imagine ;  and  his  aversion 
to  the  harsh,  cruel,  and  hideous,  frequently  takes  the 
form  of  positive  kindness  and  charity.  His  mem 
ory  (for  trifles)  is  remarkable,  and  (where  his  own 
performances  are  not  involved)  his  taste  is  excel 
lent.  He  has  no  will  for  evil  more  than  for  good. 
He  is  the  victim,  however,  of  more  illusions  with 
regard  to  himself  than  I  ever  knew  a  human  heart 


170 Master  Eustace 

to  find  lodging  for.  At  the  age  of  twenty,  poor, 
ignorant  and  remarkably  handsome,  he  married  a 
woman  of  immense  wealth,  many  years  his  senior. 
At  the  end  of  three  years  she  very  considerately 
went  out  of  the  world,  and  left  him  to  the  enjoy 
ment  of  his  freedom  and  riches.  If  he  had  remained 
poor,  he  might  from  time  to  time  have  rubbed  at 
random  against  the  truth,  and  would  still  be  wear 
ing  a  few  of  its  sacred  smutches  on  his  sleeve.  But 
he  wraps  himself  in  his  money  as  in  a  wadded  dress 
ing  gown,  and  goes  trundling  through  life  on  his 
little  gold  wheels,  as  warm  and  close  as  an  unweaned 
baby.  The  greater  part  of  his  career,  from  his 
marriage  to  within  fifteen  years  ago,  was  spent  in 
Europe,  which,  superficially,  he  knows  very  well. 
He  has  lived  in  fifty  places,  known  hundreds  of 
people,  and  spent  thousands  of  dollars.  At  one 
time,  I  believe,  he  spent  a  few  thousands  too  many, 
trembled  for  an  instant  on  the  verge  of  a  pecuniary 
crash ;  but  recovered  himself,  and  found  himself 
more  frightened  than  hurt,  but  loudly  admonished 
to  lower  his  pitch.  He  passed  five  years  in  a  species 
of  penitent  seclusion  on  the  lake  of — I  forget  what 
(his  genius  seems  to  be  partial  to  lakes) ,  and  formed 
the  rudiments  of  his  present  magnificent  taste  for 
literature ;  I  can't  call  it  anything  but  magnificent, 
so  long  as  it  must  needs  have  Theodore  Lisle  as  a 
ministrant.  At  the  close  of  this  period,  by  economy, 


A  Light  Man 171 

he  had  become  a  rich  man  again.  The  control  and 
discipline  exercised  during  these  years  upon  his 
desires  and  his  natural  love  of  luxury,  must  have 
been  the  sole  act  of  real  resolution  in  the  history  of 
Mr.  Sloane's  life.  It  was  rendered  possible  by  his 
morbid,  his  actually  pusillanimous  dread  of  pov 
erty;  he  doesn't  feel  safe  without  half  a  million 
between  him  and  starvation.  Meanwhile  he  had 
turned  from  a  young  man  into  an  old  man;  his 
health  was  broken,  his  spirit  was  jaded,  and  I 
imagine,  to  do  him  justice,  that  he  began  to  feel 
certain  natural,  filial  longings  for  this  dear  Amer 
ican  mother  of  us  all.  They  say  the  most  hopeless 
truants  and  triflers  have  come  to  it.  He  came  to 
it,  at  all  events;  he  packed  up  his  books  and  pic 
tures  and  gimcracks,  and  bade  farewell  to  Europe. 
This  house  which  he  now  occupies  belonged  to  his 
wife's  estate.  She  had,  for  sentimental  reasons  of 
her  own,  commended  it  to  his  particular  regard. 
On  his  return  he  came  to  see  it,  fancied  it,  turned 
a  parcel  of  carpenters  and  upholsterers  into  it,  and 
by  inhabiting  it  for  twelve  years,  transformed  it 
into  the  perfect  dwelling  which  I  find  it.  Here  he 
has  spent  all  his  time,  with  the  exception  of  a  regular 
winter's  visit  to  New  York — a  practice  recently  dis 
continued,  owing  to  the  aggravation  of  his  physical 
condition  and  the  projection  of  these  famous 
memoirs.  His  life  has  finally  come  to  be  passed  in 


172 Master  Eustace 

comparative  solitude.  He  tells  of  various  distant 
relatives,  as  well  as  intimate  friends  of  both  sexes, 
who  used  formerly  to  be  largely  entertained  at  his 
cost,  but  with  each  of  them,  in  the  course  of  time, 
he  seems  to  have  clipped  the  thread  of  intercourse. 
Throughout  life,  evidently,  he  has  shown  great 
delicacy  of  tact  in  keeping  himself  clean  of  para 
sites.  Rich,  lonely  and  vain,  he  must  have  been 
fair  game  for  the  race  of  social  sycophants  and 
cormorants;  and  it's  richly  to  the  credit  of  his 
shrewdness  and  good  sense,  that  he  has  suffered  so 
little  havoc  in  substance  and  happiness.  Apparently 
they've  been  a  sad  lot  of  bunglers.  I  maintain  that 
he's  to  be — how  shall  I  say  it? — possessed.  But  you 
must  work  in  obedience  to  certain  definite  laws. 
Doctor  Jones,  his  physician,  tells  me  that  in  point 
of  fact  he  has  had  for  the  past  ten  years  an  unbroken 
series  of  favorites,  proteges,  and  heirs  presumptive; 
but  that  each,  in  turn,  by  some  fatally  false  move 
ment,  has  fairly  unjointed  his  nose.  The  doctor 
declares,  moreover,  that  they  were,  at  best,  a  wofully 
common  set  of  people.  Gradually  the  old  man  seems 
to  have  developed  a  preference  for  two  or  three 
strictly  exquisite  intimates,  over  a  throng  of  your 
vulgar  charmers.  His  tardy  literary  schemes,  too — 
fruit  of  his  all  but  sapless  senility — have  absorbed 
more  and  more  of  his  time  and  attention.  The  end 
of  it  all  is,  therefore,  that  Theodore  and  I  have  him 


A   Light  Man 173 

quite  to  ourselves,  and  that  it  behooves  us  to  keep 
our  noses  on  our  faces,  and  our  heads  on  our 
shoulders. 

Poor,  pretentious  old  simpleton!  It's  not  his 
fault,  after  all,  that  he  fancies  himself  a  great  little 
man.  How  are  you  to  judge  of  the  stature  of  man 
kind  when  men  have  forever  addressed  you  on  their 
knees  ?  Peace  and  joy  to  his  innocent  fatuity !  He 
believes  himself  the  most  rational  of  men;  in  fact, 
he's  the  most  vapidly  sentimental.  He  fancies  him 
self  a  philosopher,  a  thinker,  a  student.  His  philos 
ophy  and  his  erudition  are  quite  of  a  piece;  they 
would  lie  at  ease  in  the  palm  of  Theodore's  hand. 
He  prides  himself  on  his  good  manners,  his  urban 
ity,  his  unvarying  observance  of  the  becoming.  My 
private  impression  is,  that  his  cramped  old  bosom 
contains  unsuspected  treasures  of  cunning  im 
pertinence.  He  takes  his  stand  on  his  speculative 
audacity — his  direct,  undaunted  gaze  at  the  uni 
verse;  in  truth,  his  mind  is  haunted  by  a  hundred 
dingy  old-world  spectres  and  theological  phan 
tasms.  He  fancies  himself  one  of  the  weightiest  of 
men ;  he  is  essentially  one  of  the  lightest.  He  deems 
himself  ardent,  impulsive,  passionate,  magnanimous 
— capable  of  boundless  enthusiasm  for  an  idea  or  a 
sentiment.  It  is  clear  to  me  that,  on  no  occasion 
of  pure,  disinterested  action  can  he  ever  have  taken 
a  timely,  positive  second  step.  He  fancies,  finally, 


174 Master  Eustace 

that  he  has  drained  the  cup  of  life  to  the  dregs ;  that 
he  has  known,  in  its  bitterest  intensity,  every  emo 
tion  of  which  the  human  spirit  is  capable;  that  he 
has  loved,  struggled,  and  suffered.  Stuff  and  non 
sense,  all  of  it.  He  has  never  loved  any  one  but 
himself;  he  has  never  suffered  from  anything  but 
an  undigested  supper  or  an  exploded  pretension ;  he 
has  never  touched  with  the  end  of  his  lips  the  vulgar 
bowl  from  which  the  mass  of  mankind  quaffs  its 
great  floods  of  joy  and  sorrow.  Well,  the  long  and 
short  of  it  all  is,  that  I  honestly  pity  him.  He  may 
have  given  sly  knocks  in  his  life,  but  he  can't  hurt 
me.  I  pity  his  ignorance,  his  weakness,  his  timidity. 
He  has  tasted  the  real  sweetness  of  life  no  more 
than  its  bitterness;  he  has  never  dreamed,  or  wan 
dered,  or  dared ;  he  has  never  known  any  but  mer 
cenary  affection;  neither  men  nor  women  have 
risked  aught  for  him — for  his  good  spirits,  his  good 
looks,  and  his  poverty.  How  I  should  like  to  give 
him,  for  once,  a  real  sensation! 

26th. — I  took  a  row  this  morning  with  Theodore 
a  couple  of  miles  along  the  lake,  to  a  point  where 
we  went  ashore  and  lounged  away  an  hour  in  the 
sunshine,  which  is  still  very  comfortable.  Poor 
Theodore  seems  troubled  about  many  things.  For 
one,  he  is  troubled  about  me;  he  is  actually  more 
anxious  about  my  future  than  I  myself;  he  thinks 
better  of  me  than  I  do  of  myself ;  he  is  so  deucedly 


A   Light  Man 175 

conscientious,  so  scrupulous,  so  averse  to  giving 
offence  or  to  brusquer  any  situation  before  it  has 
played  itself  out,  that  he  shrinks  from  betraying  his 
apprehensions  or  asking  any  direct  questions.  But 
I  know  that  he  is  dying  to  extort  from  me  some 
positive  profession  of  practical  interest  and  faith. 
I  catch  myself  in  the  act  of  taking — heaven  forgive 
me! — a  half-malicious  joy  in  confounding  his  ex 
pectations — leading  his  generous  sympathies  off 
the  scent  by  various  extravagant  protestations  of 
mock  cynicism  and  malignity.  But  in  Theodore  I 
have  so  firm  a  friend  that  I  shall  have  a  long  row 
to  hoe  if  I  ever  find  it  needful  to  make  him  for 
swear  his  devotion — abjure  his  admiration.  He 
admires  me — that's  absolute;  he  takes  my  moral 
infirmities  for  the  eccentricities  of  genius,  and  they 
only  impart  an  extra  flavor — a  haut  gout — to  the 
richness  of  my  charms.  Nevertheless,  I  can  see  that 
he  is  disappointed.  I  have  even  less  to  show,  after 
this  lapse  of  years,  than  he  had  hoped.  Heaven 
help  us!  little  enough  it  must  strike  him  as  being. 
What  an  essential  absurdity  there  is  in  our  being 
friends  at  all.  I  honestly  believe  we  shall  end  with 
hating  each  other.  They  are  all  very  well  now — 
our  diversity,  our  oppugnancy,  our  cross  purposes; 
now  that  we  are  at  play  together  they  serve  as  a 
theme  for  jollity.  But  when  we  settle  down  to  work 
— ah  me!  for  the  tug  of  war.  I  wonder,  as  it  is, 


176 Master  Eustace 

that  Theodore  keeps  his  patience  with  me.  His 
education  since  we  parted  should  tend  logically  to 
make  him  despise  me.  He  has  studied,  thought, 
suffered,  loved — loved  those  very  plain  sisters  and 
nieces.  Poor  me !  how  should  I  be  virtuous  ?  I  have 
no  sisters,  plain  or  pretty! — nothing  to  love,  work 
for,  live  for.  Friend  Theodore,  if  you  are  going 
one  of  these  days  to  despise  me  and  drop  me — 
in  the  sacred  name  of  comfort,  come  to  the 
point  at  once,  and  make  an  end  of  our  common 
agony ! 

He  is  troubled,  too,  about  Mr.  Sloane.  His  atti 
tude  towards  the  bonhomme  quite  passes  my  com 
prehension.  It's  the  queerest  jumble  of  contraries. 
He  penetrates  him,  contemns  him — yet  respects  and 
admires  him.  It  all  comes  of  the  poor  boy's  shrink 
ing  New  England  conscience.  He's  afraid  to  give 
his  perceptions  a  fair  chance,  lest,  forsooth,  they 
should  look  over  his  neighbor's  wall.  He'll  not 
understand  that  he  may  as  well  sacrifice  the  old 
man  for  a  lamb  as  for  a  sheep.  His  view  of  the 
gentleman,  therefore,  is  a  perfect  tissue  of  cobwebs 
—a  jumble  of  half-way  sorrows,  and  wide-drawn 
charities,  and  hair-breadth  'scapes  from  utter  dam 
nation,  and  sudden  platitudes  of  generosity ;  fit,  all 
of  it,  to  make  an  angel  curse ! 

'The  man's  a  perfect  egotist  and  fool,"  say  I, 
"but  I  like  him."  Now  Theodore  likes  him — or 


A  Light  Man  177 

rather  wants  to  like  him;  but  he  can't  reconcile  it 
to  his  self-respect — fastidious  deity! — to  like  a  fool. 
Why  the  deuce  can't  he  leave  it  alone  altogether? 
It's  a  purely  practical  matter.  He  ought  to  do  the 
duties  of  his  place  all  the  better  for  having  his  head 
clear  of  officious  sentiment.  I  don't  believe  in  dis 
interested  service;  and  Theodore  is  too  desperately 
bent  on  preserving  his  disinterestedness.  With  me, 
it's  different.  I'm  perfectly  free  to  love  the  bon- 
homme — for  a  fool.  I'm  neither  a  scribe  nor  a 
Pharisee;  I'm — ah  me,  what  am  I? 

And  then,  Theodore  is  troubled  about  his  sisters. 
He's  afraid  he's  not  doing  his  duty  by  them.  He 
thinks  he  ought  to  be  with  them — to  be  getting  a 
larger  salary,  to  be  teaching  his  nieces.  I'm  not 
versed  in  such  questions.  Perhaps  he  ought. 

MAY  3d. — This  morning  Theodore  sent  me  word 
that  he  was  ill  and  unable  to  get  up;  upon  which  I 
immediately  repaired  to  his  bedside.  He  had  caught 
cold,  was  sick  and  a  little  feverish.  I  urged  him  to 
make  no  attempt  to  leave  his  room,  and  assured  him 
that  I  would  do  what  I  could  to  reconcile  Mr.  Sloane 
to  his  non-attendance.  This  I  found  an  easy  matter. 
I  read  to  him  for  a  couple  of  hours,  wrote  four  let 
ters — one  in  French — and  then  talked  a  good  two 
hours  more.  I  have  done  more  talking,  by  the  way, 
in  the  last  fortnight,  than  in  any  previous  twelve 
months — much  of  it,  too,  none  of  the  wisest,  nor, 


178 Master  Eustace 

I  may  add,  of  the  most  fastidiously  veracious.  In 
a  little  discussion,  two  or  three  days  ago,  with  Theo 
dore,  I  came  to  the  point  and  roundly  proclaimed 
that  in  gossiping  with  Mr.  Sloane  I  made  no  scruple, 
for  our  common  satisfaction,  of  discreetly  using  the 
embellishments  of  fiction.  My  confession  gave  him 
"that  turn,"  as  Mrs.  Gamp  would  say,  that  his 
present  illness  may  be  the  result  of  it.  Nevertheless, 
poor,  dear  fellow,  I  trust  he'll  be  on  his  legs  to 
morrow.  This  afternoon,  somehow,  I  found  my 
self  really  in  the  humor  of  talking.  There  was 
something  propitious  in  the  circumstances;  a  hard, 
cold  rain  without,  a  wood-fire  in  the  library,  the 
bonhomme  puffing  cigarettes  in  his  armchair,  beside 
him  a  portfolio  of  newly  imported  prints  and  photo 
graphs,  and — Theodore  tucked  safely  away  in  bed. 
Finally,  when  I  brought  our  tete-a-tete  to  a  close 
(taking  good  care  to  understay  my  welcome)  Mr. 
Sloane  seized  me  by  both  hands  and  honored  me 
with  one  of  his  venerable  grins.  "Max,"  he  said — 
"you  must  let  me  call  you  Max — you're  the  most 
delightful  man  I  ever  knew." 

Verily,  there's  some  virtue  left  in  me  yet.  I 
believe  I  fairly  blushed. 

"Why  didn't  I  know  you  ten  years  ago?"  the 
old  man  went  on.  "Here  are  ten  years  lost." 

"Ten  years  ago,  my  dear  Mr.  Sloane,"  quoth 
Max,  "I  was  hardly  worth  your  knowing." 


A  Light  Man 179 

"But  I  did  know  you!"  cried  the  bonhomme.  "I 
knew  you  in  knowing  your  mother/' 

Ah !  my  mother  again.  When  the  old  man  begins 
that  chapter  I  feel  like  telling  him  to  blow  out  his 
candle  and  go  to  bed. 

"At  all  events,"  he  continued,  "we  must  make 
the  most  of  the  years  that  remain.  I'm  a  poor  sick 
old  fellow,  but  I've  no  notion  of  dying.  You'll  not 
get  tired  of  me  and  want  to  go  away?" 

"I'm  devoted  to  you,  sir,"  I  said.  "But  I  must 
be  looking  up  some  work,  you  know." 

"Work !  Bah !  I'll  give  you  work.  I'll  give  you 
wages." 

"I'm  afraid,"  I  said,  with  a  smile,  "that  you'll 
want  to  give  me  the  wages  without  the  work." 
And  then  I  declared  that  I  must  go  up  and  look  at 
poor  Theodore. 

The  bonhomme  still  kept  my  hands.  "I  wish 
very  much,"  he  said,  "that  I  could  get  you  to  love 
me  as  well  as  you  do  poor  Theodore." 

"Ah,  don't  talk  about  love,  Mr.  Sloane.  I'm  no 
lover." 

"Don't  you  love  your  friend?" 

"Not  as  he  deserves." 

"Nor  as  he  loves  you,  perhaps  ?" 

"He  loves  me,  I'm  afraid,  far  more  than  I  de 
serve." 

"Well,  Max,"  my  host  pursued,  "we  can  be  good 


180 Master  Eustace 

friends,  all  the  same.  We  don't  need  a  hocus-pocus 
of  false  sentiment.  We  are  men,  aren't  we? — men 
of  sublime  good  sense."  And  just  here,  as  the  old 
man  looked  at  me,  the  pressure  of  his  hands  deep 
ened  to  a  convulsive  grasp,  and  the  bloodless  mask 
of  his  countenance  was  suddenly  distorted  with  a 
nameless  fear.  "Ah,  my  dear  young  man!"  he 
cried,  "come  and  be  a  son  to  me — the  son  of  my 
age  and  desolation!  For  God's  sake  don't  leave  me 
to  pine  and  die  alone!" 

I  was  amazed — and  I  may  say  I  was  moved.  Is 
it  true,  then,  that  this  poor  old  heart  contains  such 
measureless  depths  of  horror  and  longing?  I  take 
it  that  he's  mortally  afraid  of  death.  I  assured  him 
on  my  honor  that  he  may  henceforth  call  upon  me 
for  any  service. 

8th. — Theodore's  indisposition  turned  out  more 
serious  than  I  expected.  He  has  been  confined  to 
his  room  till  to-day.  This  evening  he  came  down 
to  the  library  in  his  dressing  gown.  Decidedly,  Mr. 
Sloane  is  an  eccentric,  but  hardly,  as  Theodore 
thinks,  a  "charming"  one.  There  is  something  ex 
tremely  curious  in  the  exhibition  of  his  caprices — 
the  incongruous  fits  and  starts,  as  it  were,  of  his 
taste.  For  some  reason,  best  known  to  himself,  he 
took  it  into  his  head  to  deem  it  a  want  of  delicacy, 
of  respect,  of  savoir-vivrc — of  heaven  knows  what 
— that  poor  Theodore,  who  is  still  weak  and  Ian- 


A  Light  Man 181 

guid,  should  enter  the  sacred  precinct  of  his  study 
in  the  vulgar  drapery  of  a  dressing-gown.  The 
sovereign  trouble  with  the  bonhomme  is  an  absolute 
lack  of  the  instinct  of  justice.  He's  of  the  real 
feminine  turn — I  believe  I  have  written  it  before 
— without  a  ray  of  woman's  virtues.  I  honestly 
believe  that  I  might  come  into  his  study  in  my 
night-shirt  and  he  would  smile  upon  it  as  a  pic 
turesque  deshabille.  But  for  poor  Theodore  to-night 
there  was  nothing  but  scowls  and  frowns,  and  barely 
a  civil  inquiry  about  his  health.  But  poor  Theodore 
is  not  such  a  fool,  either ;  he'll  not  die  of  a  snubbing ; 
I  never  said  he  was  a  weakling.  Once  he  fairly 
saw  from  what  quarter  the  wind  blew,  he  bore  the 
master's  brutality  with  the  utmost  coolness  and  gal 
lantry.  Can  it  be  that  Mr.  Sloane  really  wishes  to 
drop  him?  The  delicious  old  brute!  He  under 
stands  favor  and  friendship  only  as  a  selfish  rap 
ture — a  reaction,  an  infatuation,  an  act  of  aggres 
sive,  exclusive  patronage.  It's  not  a  bestowal  with 
him,  but  a.  transfer,  and  half  his  pleasure  in  caus 
ing  his  sun  to  shine  is  that — being  woefully  near  its 
setting — it  will  produce  a  number  of  delectable 
shadows.  He  wants  to  cast  my  shadow,  I  suppose, 
on  Theodore;  fortunately  I'm  not  altogether  an 
opaque  body.  Since  Theodore  was  taken  ill  he  has 
been  into  his  room  but  once,  and  has  sent  him  none 
but  the  scantiest  messages.  I,  too,  have  been  much 


182 Master  Eustace          

less  attentive  than  I  should  have  wished  to  be ;  but 
my  time  has  not  been  my  own.  It  has  been,  every 
moment  of  it,  at  Mr.  Sloane's  disposal.  He  actually 
runs  after  me;  he  devours  me;  he  makes  a  fool  of 
himself,  and  is  trying  hard  to  make  one  of  me.  I  find 
that  he  will  stand — that,  in  fact,  he  actually  enjoys 
— a  certain  kind  of  humorous  snubbing.  He  likes 
anything  that  will  tickle  his  fancy,  impart  a  flavor 
to  our  relations,  remind  him  of  his  old  odds  and 
ends  of  novels  and  memoirs.  I  have  fairly  stepped 
into  Theodore's  shoes,  and  done — with  what  I  feel 
in  my  bones  to  be  vastly  inferior  skill  and  taste — 
all  the  reading,  writing,  condensing,  expounding, 
transcribing  and  advising  that  he  has  been  accus 
tomed  to  do.  I  have  driven  with  the  bonhomme; 
played  chess  and  cribbage  with  him ;  and  beaten  him, 
bullied  him,  contradicted  him;  and  forced  him  into 
going  out  on  the  water  under  my  charge.  Who  shall 
say,  after  this,  that  I  haven't  done  my  best  to  dis 
courage  his  advances,  confound  his  benevolence? 
As  yet,  my  efforts  are  vain ;  in  fact  they  quite  turn 
to  my  own  confusion.  Mr.  Sloane  is  so  vastly 
thankful  at  having  escaped  from  the  lake  with  his 
life  that  he  seems  actually  to  look  upon  me  as  a 
kind  of  romantic  preserver  and  protector.  Faugh! 
what  tiresome  nonsense  it  all  is!  But  one  thing  is 
certain,  it  can't  last  forever.  Admit  that  he  has 
cast  Theodore  out  and  taken  me  in.  He  will  speedily 


A  Light  Man 183 

discover  that  he  has  made  a  pretty  mess  of  it,  and 
that  he  had  much  better  have  left  well  enough  alone. 
He  likes  my  reading  and  writing  now,  but  in  a  month 
he'll  begin  to  hate  them.  He'll  miss  Theodore's 
healthy,  unerring,  impersonal  judgment.  What  an 
advantage  that  pure  and  luminous  nature  has  over 
mine,  after  all.  I'm  for  days,  he's  for  years;  he 
for  the  long  run,  I  for  the  short.  I,  perhaps,  am 
intended  for  success,  but  he  alone  for  happiness. 
He  holds  in  his  heart  a  tiny  sacred  particle,  which 
leavens  his  whole  being  and  keeps  it  pure  and 
sound — a  faculty  of  admiration  and  respect.  For 
him  human  nature  is  still  a  wonder  and  a  mystery; 
it  bears  a  divine  stamp — Mr.  Sloane's  tawdry  or 
ganism  as  well  as  the  best. 

1 3th. — I  have  refused,  of  course,  to  supplant 
Theodore  further,  in  the  exercise  of  his  functions, 
and  he  has  resumed  his  morning  labors  with  Mr. 
Sloane.  I,  on  my  side,  have  spent  these  morning 
hours  in  scouring  the  country  on  that  capital  black 
mare,  the  use  of  which  is  one  of  the  perquisites  of 
Theodore's  place.  The  days  have  been  magnificent 
— the  heat  of  the  sun  tempered  by  a  murmuring, 
wandering  wind,  the  whole  north  a  mighty  ecstasy 
of  sound  and  verdure,  the  sky  a  far-away  vault  of 
bended  blue.  Not  far  from  the  mill  at  M.,  the  other 
end  of  the  lake,  I  met,  for  the  third  time,  that  very 
pretty  young  girl  who  reminds  me  so  forcibly  of 


184 Master  Eustace 

A.  L.  She  makes  so  very  frank  and  fearless  a  use 
of  her  eyes  that  I  ventured  to  stop  and  bid  her  good- 
morning.  She  seems  nothing  loth  to  an  acquaint 
ance.  She's  an  out-and-out  barbarian  in  speech, 
but  her  eyes  look  as  if  they  had  drained  the  noon 
day  heavens  of  their  lustre.  These  rides  do  me 
good;  I  had  got  into  a  sadly  worrying,  brooding 
habit  of  thought. 

What  has  got  into  Theodore  I  know  not ;  his  ill 
ness  seems  to  have  left  him  strangely  affected.  He 
has  fits  of  sombre  reserve,  alternating  with  spasms 
of  extravagant  gayety.  He  avoids  me  at  times  for 
hours  together,  and  then  he  comes  and  looks  at  me 
with  an  inscrutable  smile,  as  if  he  were  on  the 
verge  of  a  burst  of  confidence — which  again  is  swal 
lowed  up  in  the  darkness  of  his  silence.  Is  he 
hatching  some  astounding  benefit  to  his  species? 
Is  he  working  to  bring  about  my  removal  to  a  higher 
sphere  of  action?  Nous  verrons  bien. 

1 8th. — Theodore  threatens  departure.  He  re 
ceived  this  morning  a  letter  from  one  of  his  sisters 
— the  young  widow — announcing  her  engagement 
to  a  minister  whose  acquaintance  she  has  recently 
made,  and  intimating  her  expectation  of  an  immedi 
ate  union  with  the  gentleman — a  ceremony  which 
would  require  Theodore's  attendance.  Theodore, 
in  high  good  humor,  read  the  letter  aloud  at  break 
fast — and  to  tell  the  truth  a  charming  letter  it  was. 


A   Light  Man 185 

He  then  spoke  of  his  having  to  go  on  to  the  wed 
ding;  a  proposition  to  which  Mr.  Sloane  graciously 
assented — but  with  truly  startling  amplitude.  "I 
shall  be  sorry  to  lose  you  after  so  happy  a  connec 
tion,"  said  the  old  man.  Theodore  turned  pale, 
stared  a  moment,  and  then,  recovering  his  color  and 
his  composure,  declared  that  he  should  have  no  ob 
jection  in  life  to  coming  back. 

"Bless  your  soul!"  cried  the  bonkomme,  "you 
don't  mean  to  say  you'll  leave  your  little  sister  all 
alone?" 

To  which  Theodore  replied  that  he  would  ar 
range  for  her  to  live  with  his  brother-in-law.  "It's 
the  only  proper  thing,"  he  declared,  in  a  tone  which 
was  not  to  be  gainsaid.  It  has  come  to  this,  then, 
that  Mr.  Sloane  actually  wants  to  turn  him  out  of 
the  house.  Oh,  the  precious  old  fool!  He  keeps 
smiling  an  uncanny  smile,  which  means,  as  I  read 
it,  that  if  the  poor  boy  once  departs  he  shall  never 
return  on  the  old  footing — for  all  his  impudence ! 

2Oth. — This  morning,  at  breakfast,  we  had  a  ter 
rific  scene.  A  letter  arrives  for  Theodore ;  he  opens 
it,  turns  white  and  red,  frowns,  falters,  and  then  in 
forms  us  that  the  clever  widow  has  broken  off  her 
engagement.  No  wedding,  therefore,  and  no  de 
parture  for  Theodore.  The  bonhomme  was  furi 
ous.  In  his  fury  he  took  the  liberty  of  calling  poor 
Mrs.  Parker  (the  sister)  a  very  impolite  name. 


186 Master  Eustace 

Theodore  rebuked  him,  with  perfect  good  taste,  and 
kept  his  temper. 

"If.  my  opinions  don't  suit  you,  Mr.  Lisle,"  the 
old  man  broke  out,  "and  my  mode  of  expressing 
them  displeases  you,  you  know  you  can  easily  re 
move  yourself  from  within  my  jurisdiction." 

"My  dear  Mr.  Sloane,"  said  Theodore,  "your 
opinions,  as  a  general  rule,  interest  me  deeply,  and 
have  never  ceased  to  act  most  beneficially  upon  the 
formation  of  my  own.  Your  mode  of  expressing 
them  is  charming,  and  I  wouldn't  for  the  world, 
after  all  our  pleasant  intercourse,  separate  from  you 
in  bitterness.  Only,  I  repeat,  your  qualification  of 
my  sister's  conduct  was  perfectly  uncalled  for.  If 
you  knew  her,  you  would  be  the  first  to  admit  it." 

There  was  something  in  Theodore's  aspect  and 
manner,  as  he  said  these  words,  which  puzzled  me 
all  the  morning.  After  dinner,  finding  myself  alone 
with  him,  I  told  him  I  was  glad  he  was  not  obliged 
to  go  away.  He  looked  at  me  with  the  mysterious 
smile  I  have  mentioned — a  smile  which  actually 
makes  him  handsome — thanked  me  and  fell  into 
meditation.  As  this  bescribbled  chronicle  is  the  rec 
ord  of  my  follies,  as  well  as  of  my  haut  fails,  I 
needn't  hesitate  to  say  that,  for  a  moment,  I  was 
keenly  exasperated.  What  business  has  poor,  trans 
parent  Theodore  to  put  on  the  stony  mask  of  the 
sphinx  and  play  the  inscrutable?  What  right  has 


A  Light  Man 187 

he  to  do  so  with  me  especially,  in  whom  he  has  al 
ways  professed  an  absolute  confidence?  Just  as  I 
was  about  to  cry  out,  "Come,  my  dear  boy,  this  af 
fectation  of  mystery  has  lasted  quite  long  enough — 
favor  me  at  last  with  the  result  of  your  cogitation !" 
— as  I  was  on  the  point  of  thus  expressing  my  im 
patience  of  his  continued  solemnity  of  demeanor,  the 
oracle  at  last  addressed  itself  to  utterance. 

"You  see,  my  dear  Max,"  he  said,  "I  can't,  in 
justice  to  myself,  go  away  in  obedience  to  any  such 
intimation  as  that  vouchsafed  to  me  this  morning. 
What  do  you  think  of  my  actual  footing  here  ?" 

Theodore's  actual  footing  here  seemed  to  me  es 
sentially  uncomfortable;  of  course  I  said  so. 

"Nay,  I  assure  you  it's  not,"  he  answered.  "I 
should  feel,  on  the  contrary,  very  uncomfortable  to 
think  that  I'd  come  away,  except  by  my  own  choice. 
You  see  a  man  can't  afford  to  cheapen  himself. 
What  are  you  laughing  at?" 

"I'm  laughing,  in  the  first  place,  my  dear  fellow, 
to  hear  on  your  lips  the  language  of  cold  calculation; 
and  in  the  second  place,  at  your  odd  notion  of  the 
process  by  which  a  man  keeps  himself  up  in  the 
market" 

"I  assure  you  that  it's  the  correct  notion.  I  came 
here  as  a  favor  to  Mr.  Sloane;  it  was  expressly 
understood  so.  The  occupation  was  distasteful  to 
me.  I  had  from  top  to  bottom  to  accommodate  my- 


188 Master  Eustace 

self  to  my  duties.  I  had  to  compromise  with  a  dozen 
convictions,  preferences,  prejudices.  I  don't  take  such 
things  easily ;  I  take  them  hard ;  and  when  once  the 
labor  is  achieved  I  can't  consent  to  have  it  thrown 
away.  If  Mr.  Sloane  needed  me  then,  he  needs  me 
still.  I  am  ignorant  of  any  change  having  taken 
place  in  his  intentions,  or  in  his  means  of  satisfying 
them.  I  came  not  to  amuse  him,  but  to  do  a  certain 
work ;  I  hope  to  remain  until  the  work  is  completed. 
To  go  away  sooner  is  to  make  a  confession  of  in 
capacity  which,  I  protest,  costs  too  great  a  sacrifice 
to  my  vanity." 

Theodore  spoke  these  words  with  a  face  which 
I  have  never  seen  him  wear;  a  fixed,  mechanical 
smile;  a  hard,  dry  glitter  in  his  eyes;  a  harsh, 
strident  tone  in  his  voice — in  his  whole  physiog 
nomy  a  gleam,  as  it  were,  a  note  of  defiance.  Now 
I  confess  that  for  defiance  I  have  never  been  con 
scious  of  an  especial  relish.  When  I'm  defied,  I'm 
ugly.  "My  dear  man,"  I  replied,  "your  sentiments 
do  you  prodigious  credit.  Your  very  ingenious 
theory  of  your  present  situation,  as  well  as  your  ex 
tremely  pronounced  sense  of  your  personal  value, 
are  calculated  to  insure  you  a  degree  of  practical  suc 
cess  which  can  very  well  dispense  with  the  further 
ance  of  my  poor  good  wishes."  Oh,  the  grimness 
of  his  listening  smile — and  I  suppose  I  may  add  of 
my  own  physiognomy!  But  I  have  ceased  to  be 


A  Light  Man 189 


puzzled.  Theodore's  conduct  for  the  past  ten  days 
is  suddenly  illumined  with  a  backward,  lurid  ray. 
Here  are  a  few  plain  truths,  which  it  behooves  me 
to  take  to  heart — commit  to  memory.  Theodore  is 
jealous  of  me.  Theodore  hates  me.  Theodore  has 
been  seeking  for  the  past  three  months  to  see  his 
name  written,  last  but  not  least,  in  a  certain  testa 
mentary  document':  "Finally,  I  bequeath  to  my  dear 
young  friend,  Theodore  Lisle,  in  return  for  inval 
uable  services  and  unfailing  devotion,  the  bulk  of  my 

property,    real    and    personal,    consisting    of " 

(hereupon  follows  an  exhaustive  enumeration  of 
houses,  lands,  public  securities,  books,  pictures, 
horses,  and  dogs).  It  is  for  this  that  he  has  toiled, 
and  watched,  and  prayed;  submitted  to  intellectual 
weariness  and  spiritual  torture ;  made  his  terms  with 
levity,  blasphemy,  and  insult.  For  this  he  sets  his 
teeth  and  tightens  his  grasp;  for  this  he'll  fight. 
Merciful  powers!  it's  an  immense  weight  off  one's 
mind.  There  are  nothing,  then,  but  vulgar,  common 
laws ;  no  sublime  exceptions,  no  transcendent  anom 
alies.  Theodore's  a  knave,  a  hypo — nay,  nay ;  stay, 
irreverent  hand! — Theodore's  a  man!  Well,  that's 
all  I  want.  He  wants  fight — he  shall  have  it.  Have 
I  got,  at  last,  my  simple,  natural  emotion? 

2 1  st. — I  have  lost  no  time.  This  evening,  late, 
after  I  had  heard  Theodore  go  to  his  room  (I  had 
left  the  library  early,  on  the  pretext  of  having  let- 


190 Master  Eustace 

ters  to  write)  I  repaired  to  Mr.  Sloane,  who  had 
not  yet  gone  to  bed,  and  informed  him  that  it  is 
necessary  I  shall  at  once  leave  him,  and  seek  some 
occupation  in  New  York.  He  felt  the  blow ;  it 
brought  him  straight  down  on  his  marrow-bones. 
He  went  through  the  whole  gamut  of  his  arts  and 
graces;  he  blustered,  whimpered,  entreated,  flat 
tered.  He  tried  to  drag  in  Theodore's  name;  but 
this  I,  of  course,  prevented.  But,  finally,  why,  why, 
WHY,  after  all  my  promises  of  fidelity,  must  I  thus 
cruelly  desert  him?  Then  came  my  supreme 
avowal :  I  have  spent  my  last  penny ;  while  I  stay, 
I'm  a  beggar.  The  remainder  of  this  extraordinary 
scene  I  have  no  power  to  describe :  how  the  bon- 
homme,  touched,  inflamed,  inspired,  by  the  thought 
of  my  destitution,  and  at  the  same  time  annoyed, 
perplexed,  bewildered  at  having  to  commit  himself 
to  any  practical  alleviation  of  it,  worked  himself  into 
a  nervous  frenzy  which  deprived  him  of  a  clear  sense 
of  the  value  of  his  words  and  his  actions ;  how  I, 
prompted  by  the  irresistible  spirit  of  my  desire  to 
leap  astride  of  his  weakness,  and  ride  it  hard  into 
the  goal  of  my  dreams,  cunningly  contrived  to  keep 
his  spirit  at  the  fever  point,  so  that  strength,  and 
reason,  and  resistance  should  burn  themselves  out. 
I  shall  probably  never  again  have  such  a  sensation 
as  I  enjoyed  to-night — actually  feel  a  heated  human 
heart  throbbing,  and  turning,  and  struggling  in  my 


A  Light  Man 191 

grasp;  know  its  pants,  its  spasms,  its  convulsions, 
and  its  final  senseless  quiescence.  At  half -past  one 
o'clock,  Mr.  Sloane  got  out  of  his  chair,  went  to  his 
secretary,  opened  a  private  drawer,  and  took  out  a 
folded  paper.  'This  is  my  will,"  he  said,  "made 
some  seven  weeks  ago.  If  you'll  stay  with  me,  I'll 
destroy  it." 

"Really,  Mr.  Sloane,"  I  said,  "if  you  think  my 
purpose  is  to  exert  any  pressure  upon  your  testa 
mentary  inclinations " 

"I'll  tear  it  in  pieces,"  he  cried;  "I'll  burn  it  up. 
I  shall  be  as  sick  as  a  dog  to-morrow ;  but  I'll  do  it. 
A-a-h !" 

He  clapped  his  hand  to  his  side,  as  if  in  sudden, 
overwhelming  pain,  and  sank  back  fainting  into  his 
chair.  A  single  glance  assured  me  that  he  was  un 
conscious.  I  possessed  myself  of  the  paper,  opened 
it,  and  perceived  that  the  will  is  almost  exclusively  in 
Theodore's  favor.  For  an  instant,  a  savage,  puerile 
feeling  of  hate  sprang  erect  in  my  bosom,  and  I 
came  within  an  ace  of  obeying  my  foremost  impulse 
— that  of  casting  the  document  into  the  fire.  For 
tunately,  my  reason  overtook  my  passion,  though 
for  a  moment  'twas  an  even  race.  I  replaced  the 
paper  in  the  secretary,  closed  it,  and  rang  the  bell  for 
Robert  (the  old  man's  servant).  Before  he  came  I 
stood  watching  the  poor,  pale  remnant  of  mortality 
before  me,  and  wondering  whether  those  feeble  life- 


192 Master  Eustace 

gasps  were  numbered.  He  was  as  white  as  a  sheet, 
grimacing  with  pain — horribly  ugly.  Suddenly,  he 
opened  his  eyes;  they  met  my  own;  I  fell  on  my 
knees  and  took  his  hands.  They  closed  on  mine 
with  a  grasp  strangely  akin  to  the  rigidity  of  death. 
Nevertheless,  since  then  he  has  revived,  and  has  re 
lapsed  again  into  a  comparatively  healthy  sleep. 
Robert  seems  to  know  how  to  deal  with  him. 

22d. — Mr.  Sloane  is  seriously  ill — out  of  his  mind 
and  unconscious  of  people's  identity.  The  doctor 
has  been  here,  off  and  on,  all  day,  but  this  evening 
reports  improvement.  I  have  kept  out  of  the  old 
man's  room,  and  confined  myself  to  my  own,  reflect 
ing  largely  upon  the  odd  contingency  of  his  immedi 
ate  death.  Does  Theodore  know  of  the  will? 
Would  it  occur  to  him  to  divide  the  property? 
Would  it  occur  to  me,  in  his  place?  We  met  at 
dinner,  and  talked  in  a  grave,  desultory,  friendly 
fashion.  After  all,  he's  an  excellent  fellow.  I 
don't  hate  him.  I  don't  even  dislike  him.  He  jars 
on  me,  il  m'agace;  but  that's  no  reason  why  I  should 
do  him  an  evil  turn.  Nor  shall  I.  The  property  is 
a  fixed  idea,  that's  all.  I  shall  get  it  if  I  can.  We're 
fairly  matched.  Before  heaven,  no,  we're  not  fairly 
matched !  Theodore  has  a  conscience. 

23d. — I'm  restless  and  nervous — and  for  good 
reasons.  Scribbling  here  keeps  me  quiet.  This 
morning  Mr.  Sloane  is  better;  feeble  and  uncertain 


A  Light  Man 193 

in  mind,  but  unmistakably  on  the  mend.  I  may 
confess  now  that  I  feel  relieved  of  a  weighty  bur 
den.  Last  night  I  hardly  slept  a  wink.  I  lay  awake 
listening  to  the  pendulum  of  my  clock.  It  seemed 
to  say  "He  lives — he  dies."  I  fully  expected  to 
have  it  stop  suddenly  at  dies.  But  it  kept  going  all 
the  morning,  and  to  a  decidedly  more  lively  tune.  In 
the  afternoon  the  old  man  sent  for  me.  I  found 
him  in  his  great  muffled  bed,  with  his  face  the  color 
of  damp  chalk,  and  his  eyes  glowing  faintly,  like 
torches  half -stamped  out.  I  was  forcibly  struck 
with  the  utter  loneliness  of  his  lot.  For  all  human 
attendance,  my  villainous  self  grinning  at  his  bed 
side,  and  old  Robert  without,  listening,  doubtless,  at 
the  keyhole.  The  bonhomme  stared  at  me  stupidly  ; 
then  seemed  to  know  me,  and  greeted  me  with  a 
sickly  smile.  It  was  some  moments  before  he  was 
able  to  speak.  At  last  he  faintly  bade  me  to  descend 
into  the  library,  open  the  secret  drawer  of  the  sec 
retary  (which  he  contrived  to  direct  me  how  to  do), 
possess  myself  of  his  will,  and  burn  it  up.  He  ap 
pears  to  have  forgotten  his  having  removed  it,  night 
before  last.  I  told  him  that  I  had  an  insurmount 
able  aversion  to  any  personal  dealings  with  the  docu 
ment.  He  smiled,  patted  the  back  of  my  hand,  and 
requested  me,  in  that  case,  to  get  it,  at  least,  and 
bring  it  to  him.  I  couldn't  deny  him  that  favor? 
No,  I  couldn't,  indeed.  I  went  down  to  the  library, 


194 Master  Eustace 

therefore,  and  on  entering  the  room  found  Theo 
dore  standing  by  the  fireplace  with  a  bundle  of 
papers.  The  secretary  was  open.  I  stood  still,  look 
ing  from  the  ruptured  cabinet  to  the  documents  in 
his  hand.  Among  them  I  recognized,  by  its  shape 
and  size,  the  paper  of  which  I  had  intended  to  pos 
sess  myself.  Without  delay  I  walked  straight  up 
to  him.  He  looked  surprised,  but  not  confused. 
"I'm  afraid  I  shall  have  to  trouble  you,"  I  said,  "to 
surrender  one  of  those  papers." 

"Surrender,  Max?  To  anything  of  your  own  you 
are  perfectly  welcome.  I  didn't  know,  however,  that 
you  made  use  of  Mr.  Sloane's  secretary.  I  was 
looking  up  some  notes  of  my  own  making,  in  which 
I  conceive  I  have  a  property." 

"This  is  what  I  want,  Theodore,"  I  said;  and  I 
drew  the  will,  unfolded,  from  between  his  hands. 
As  I  did  so  his  eyes  fell  upon  the  superscription, 
"Last  Will  and  Testament.  March.  F.  S."  He 
flushed  a  splendid  furious  crimson.  Our  eyes  met. 
Somehow — I  don't  know  how  or  why,  or  for  that 
matter  why  not — I  burst  into  a  violent  peal  of  laugh 
ter.  Theodore  stood  staring,  with  two  hot,  bitter 
tears  in  his  eyes. 

"Of  course  you  think,"  he  said,  "that  I  came  to 
ferret  out  that  thing." 

I  shrugged  my  shoulders — those  of  my  body  only. 
I  confess,  morally,  I  was  on  my  knees  with  contri- 


A  Light  Man 195 

tion,  but  there  was  a  fascination  in  it — a  fatality.  I 
remembered  that  in  the  hurry  of  my  movements,  the 
other  evening,  I  had  replaced  the  will  simply  in  one 
of  the  outer  drawers  of  the  cabinet,  among  Theo 
dore's  own  papers ;  doubtless  where  he  had  taken  it 
up.  "Mr.  Sloane  sent  me  for  it,"  I  said. 

"Very  good,  I'm  glad  to  hear  he's  well  enough  to 
think  of  such  things." 

"He  means  to  destroy  it." 

"I  hope,  then,  he  has  another  made." 

"Mentally,  I  suppose  he  has." 

''Unfortunately,  his  weakness  isn't  mental — or  ex 
clusively  so." 

"Oh,  he'll  live  to  make  a  dozen  more,"  I  said. 
"Do  you  know  the  purport  of  this,  one  ?" 

Theodore's  color,  by  this  time,  had  died  away  into 
a  sombre  paleness.  He  shook  his  head.  The  dog- 
gedness  of  the  movement  provoked  me.  I  wished  to 
arouse  his  curiosity.  "I  have  his  commission,"  I 
rejoined,  "to  destroy  it." 

Theodore  smiled  superbly.  "It's  not  a  task  I 
envy  you,"  he  said. 

"I  should  think  not — especially  if  you  knew  the 
import  of  the  will."  He  stood  with  folded  arms, 
regarding  me  with  the  remote  contempt  of  his  rich 
blue  eyes.  I  couldn't  stand  it.  "Come,  it's  your 
property,"  I  cried.  "You're  sole  legatee.  I  give  it 
up  to  you."  And  I  thrust  the  paper  into  his  hand. 


196 Master  Eustace 

He  received  it  mechanically ;  but  after  a  pause,  be 
thinking  himself,  he  unfolded  it  and  cast  his  eyes 
over  the  contents.  Then  he  slowly  refolded  it  and 
held  it  a  moment  with  a  tremulous  hand.  "You  say 
that  Mr.  Sloane  directed  you  to  destroy  it?"  he  fi 
nally  asked. 

"I  say  so." 

"And  that  you  know  the  contents  ?" 

"Exactly." 

"And  that  you  were  about  to  comply?" 

"On  the  contrary,  I  declined." 

Theodore  fixed  his  eyes,  for  a  moment,  on  the 
superscription,  and  then  raised  them  again  to  my 
face.  "Thank  you,  Max,"  he  said  "You've  left 
me  a  real  satisfaction."  He  tore  the  sheet  across 
and  threw  the  bits  into  the  fire.  We  stood  watch 
ing  them  burn.  "Now  he  can  make  another,"  said 
Theodore. 

"Twenty  others,"  I  replied. 

"No,"  said  Theodore,  "you'll  take  care  of  that." 

"Upon  my  soul,"  I  cried,  "you're  bitter!" 

"No,  not  now.  I  worked  off  all  my  bitterness  in 
these  few  words." 

"Well,  in  consideration  of  that,  I  excuse  them." 

"Just  as  you  please." 

"Ah,"  said  I,  "there's  a  little  bitterness  left!" 

"No,  nothing  but  indifference.  Farewell."  And 
he  put  out  his  hand. 


A  Light  Man 197 

"Are  you  going  away  ?" 

"Of  course  I  am.    Farewell/' 

"Farewell,  then.  But  isn't  your  departure  rather 
sudden?" 

"I  ought  to  have  gone  three  weeks  ago — three 
weeks  ago."  I  had  taken  his  hand,  he  pulled  it  away, 
covered  his  face,  and  suddenly  burst  into  tears. 

"Is  that  indifference  ?"  I  asked. 

"It's  something  you'll  never  know,"  he  cried. 
"It's  shame!  I'm  not  sorry  you  should  see  it.  It 
will  suggest  to  you,  perhaps,  that  my  heart  has  never 
been  in  this  filthy  contest.  Let  me  assure  you,  at 
any  rate,  that  it  hasn't ;  that  it  has  had  nothing  but 
scorn  for  the  base  perversion  of  my  pride  and  my 
ambition.  These  tears  are  tears  of  joy  at  their  re 
turn — the  return  of  the  prodigals!  Tears  of  sor 
row — sorrow ' ' 

He  was  unable  to  go  on.  He  sank  into  a  chair, 
burying  his  face  in  his  handkerchief. 

"For  God's  sake,  Theodore,"  I  said,  "stick  to  the 
joy." 

He  rose  to  his  feet  again.  "Well,"  he  said,  "it 
was  for  your  sake  that  I  parted  with  my  self-re 
spect  ;  with  your  assistance  I  recover  it." 

"How  for  my  sake?" 

"For  whom  but  you  would  I  have  gone  as  far  as 
I  did?  For  what  other  purpose  than  that  of  keep 
ing  our  friendship  whole  would  I  have  borne  you 


198 Master  Eustace 

company  into  this  narrow  pass?  A  man  whom  I 
loved  less  I  would  long  since  have  parted  with. 
You  were  needed — you  and  your  incomparable  gifts 
— to  bring  me  to  this.  You  ennobled,  exalted,  en 
chanted  the  struggle.  I  did  value  my  prospects  of 
coming  into  Mr.  Sloane's  property.  I  valued  them 
for  my  poor  sister's  sake,  as  well  as  for  my  own,  so 
long  as  they  were  the  natural  reward  of  conscien 
tious  service,  and  not  the  prize  of  hypocrisy  and 
cunning.  With  another  man  than  you  I  never  would 
have  contested  such  a  prize.  But  I  loved  you,  even 
as  my  rival.  You  played  with  me,  deceived  me,  be 
trayed  me.  I  held  my  ground,  hoping  and  longing 
to  purge  you  of  your  error  by  the  touch  of  your  old 
pledges  of  affection.  I  carried  them  in  my  heart. 
For  Mr.  Sloane,  from  the  moment  that,  under  your 
magical  influence,  he  revealed  his  extraordinary 
foibles,  I  had  nothing  but  contempt." 

"And  for  me  now  ?" 

"Don't  ask  me.     I  don't  trust  myself." 

"Hate,  I  suppose." 

"Is  that  the  best  you  can  imagine  ?    Farewell." 

"Is  it  a  serious  farewell — farewell  forever?" 

"How  can  there  be  any  other?" 

"I'm  sorry  that  such  should  be  your  point  of  view. 
It's  characteristic.  All  the  more  reason  then  that 
I  should  say  a  word  in  self-defence.  You  accuse  me 
of  having  'played  with  you,  deceived  you,  betrayed 


A  Light  Man 199 

you.*  It  seems  to  me  that  you're  quite  off  the  track. 
You  say  you  loved  me.  If  so,  you  ought  to  love  me 
still.  It  wasn't  for  my  virtue ;  for  I  never  had  any, 
or  pretended  to  any.  In  anything  I  have  done  re 
cently,  therefore,  there  has  been  no  inconsistency. 
I  never  pretended  to  love  you.  I  don't  understand 
the  word,  in  the  sense  you  attach  to  it.  I  don't 
understand  the  feeling,  between  men.  To  me,  love 
means  quite  another  thing.  You  give  it  a  meaning 
of  your  own;  you  enjoy  the  profit  of  your  inven 
tion  ;  it's  no  more  than  just  that  you  should  pay  the 
penalty.  Only,  it  seems  to  me  rather  hard  that  / 
should  pay  it."  Theodore  remained  silent;  but  his 
brow  slowly  contracted  into  an  inexorable  frown. 
"Is  it  still  a  'serious  farewell?'"  I  went  on.  "It 
seems  a  pity.  After  this  clearing  up,  it  actually 
seems  to  me  that  I  shall  be  on  better  terms  with  you. 
No  man  can  have  a  deeper  appreciation  of  your  ex 
cellent  faculties,  a  keener  enjoyment  of  your  society, 
your  talk.  I  should  very  much  regret  the  loss  of 
them." 

"Have  we,  then,  all  this  while,"  said  Theodore, 
"understood  each  other  so  little  ?" 

"Don't  say  'we'  and  'each  other/  I  think  I  have 
understood  you." 

"Very  likely.  It's  not  for  want  of  my  having 
confessed  myself." 

"Well,  Theodore,  I  do  you  justice.    To  me  you've 


200 Master  Eustace 

always  been  over  generous.    Try  now,  and  be  just." 

Still  he  stood  silent,  with  his  cold,  hard  frown. 
It  was  plain  that,  if  he  was  to  come  back  to  me,  it 
would  be  from  a  vast  distance.  What  he  was  go 
ing  to  answer  I  know  not.  The  door  opened,  and 
Robert  appeared,  pale,  trembling,  his  eyes  starting 
in  his  head. 

"I  verily  believe,  gentlemen,"  he  cried,  "that  poor 
Mr.  Sloane  is  dead  in  his  bed/' 

There  was  a  moment's  perfect  silence.  "Amen," 
said  I.  "Yes,  Theodore,  try  and  be  just."  Mr. 
Sloane  had  quietly  died  in  my  absence. 

24th. — Theodore  went  up  to  town  this  morning, 
having  shaken  hands  with  me  in  silence  before  he 
started.  Doctor  Jones,  and  Brookes  the  attorney, 
have  been  very  officious ;  and,  by  their  advice,  I  have 
telegraphed  to  a  certain  Miss  Meredith,  a  maiden 
lady,  by  their  account  the  nearest  of  kin ;  or,  in  other 
words,  simply  a  discarded  half-niece  of  the  defunct. 
She  telegraphs  back  that  she  will  arrive  in  person 
for  the  funeral.  I  shall  remain  till  she  comes.  I 
have  lost  a  fortune;  but  have  I  irretrievably  lost  a 
friend?  I'm  sure  I  can't  say. 


BENVOLIO 


BENVOLIO 


ONCE  upon  a  time  (as  if  he  had  lived  in  a 
fairy  tale)    there   was   a   very  interesting 
young  man.     This  is  not  a  fairy  tale,  and 
yet  our  young  man  was,  in  some  respects,  as  pretty 
a  fellow  as  any  fairy  prince.     I  call  him  interesting 
because  his  type  of  character  is  one  I  have  always 
found  it  agreeable  to  observe.     If  you  fail  to  con 
sider  him  so,  I  shall  be  willing  to  confess  that  the 
fault  is  mine  and  not  his ;  I  shall  have  told  my  story 
with  too  little  skill. 

His  name  was  Benvolio;  that  is,  it  was  not;  but 
we  shall  call  him  so  for  the  sake  both  of  convenience 
and  of  picturesqueness.  He  was  more  than  twenty- 
five  years  old,  but  he  was  not  yet  thirty-five ;  he  had 
a  little  property ;  he  followed  no  regular  profession. 
His  personal  appearance  was  in  the  highest  degree 
prepossessing.  Having  said  this,  it  were  perhaps 
well  that  I  should  let  you — you  especially,  madam — 
suppose  that  he  exactly  corresponded  to  your  idea 

203 


204 Master  Eustace 

of  a  well-favored  young  man;  but  I  am  bound  to 
explain  definitely  wherein  it  was  that  he  resembled 
a  fairy  prince,  and  I  need  furthermore  to  make  a 
record  of  certain  little  peculiarities  and  anomalies  in 
which  it  is  probable  that  your  brilliant  conception 
would  be  deficient.  Benvolio  was  slim  and  fair,  with 
clustering  locks,  remarkably  fine  eyes,  and  such  a 
frank,  expressive  smile  that,  on  the  journey  through 
life,  it  was  almost  as  serviceable  to  its  owner  as  the 
magic  key,  or  the  enchanted  ring,  or  the  wishing- 
cap,  or  any  other  bauble  of  necromantic  properties. 
Unfortunately  this  charming  smile  was  not  always 
at  his  command,  and  its  place  was  sometimes  occu 
pied  by  a  very  dusky  and  ill-conditioned  frown, 
which  rendered  the  young  man  no  service  whatever 
— not  even  that  of  frightening  people ;  for  though 
it  expressed  extreme  irritation  and  impatience,  it 
was  characterized  by  the  brevity  of  contempt,  and 
the  only  revenge  upon  disagreeable  things  and  of 
fensive  people  that  it  seemed  to  express  a  desire  for 
on  Benvolio's  part  was  that  of  forgetting  and  ignor 
ing  them  with  the  utmost  possible  celerity.  It  never 
made  any  one  tremble,  though  now  and  then  it  per 
haps  made  sensitive  people  murmur  an  imprecation 
or  two.  You  might  have  supposed  from  Benvolio's 
manner,  when  he  was  in  good  humor  (which  was 
the  greater  part  of  the  time),  from  his  brilliant,  in 
telligent  glance,  from  his  easy,  irresponsible  step, 


Benvolio  205 


and  in  especial  from  the  sweet,  clear,  lingering,  ca 
ressing  tone  of  his  voice — the  voice  as  it  were  of  a 
man  whose  fortune  has  been  made  for  him,  and  who 
assumes,  a  trifle  egotistically,  that  the  rest  of  the 
world  is  equally  at  leisure  to  share  with  him  the 
sweets  of  life,  to  pluck  the  wayside  flowers,  and 
chase  the  butterflies  afield — you  might  have  sup 
posed,  I  say,  from  all  this  luxurious  assurance  of 
demeanor,  that  our  hero  really  had  the  wishing-cap 
sitting  invisible  on  his  handsome  brow,  or  was 
obliged  only  to  close  his  knuckles  together  a  moment 
to  exert  an  effective  pressure  upon  the  magic  ring. 
The  young  man,  I  have  said,  was  compounded  of 
many  anomalies;  I  may  say  more  exactly  that  he 
was  a  tissue  of  absolute  contradictions.  He  did  pos 
sess  the  magic  ring,  in  a  certain  fashion;  he  pos 
sessed,  in  other  words,  the  poetic  imagination. 
Everything  that  fancy  could  do  for  him  was  done  in 
perfection.  It  gave  him  immense  satisfactions;  it 
transfigured  the  world;  it  made  very  common  ob 
jects  sometimes  seem  radiantly  beautiful,  and  it 
converted  beautiful  ones  into  infinite  sources  of  in 
toxication.  Benvolio  had  what  is  called  the  poetic! 
temperament.  It  is  rather  out  of  fashion  to  de4 
scribe  a  man  in  these  terms;  but  I  believe,  in  spite 
of  much  evidence  to  the  contrary,  that  there  are 
poets  still ;  and  if  we  may  call  a  spade  a  spade,  why 
should  we  not  call  such  a  person  as  Benvolio  a  poet  ? 


206 Master  Eustace 

These  contradictions  that  I  speak  of  ran  through 
his  whole  nature,  and  they  were  perfectly  apparent 
in  his  habits,  in  his  manners,  in  his  conversation, 
and  even  in  his  person.  It  was  as  if  the  souls  of 
two  very  different  men  had  been  thrown  together  in 
the  same  mould  and  they  had  agreed,  for  conven 
ience'  sake,  to  use  the  very  vulgar  phrase  of  the  day, 
to  run  the  machine  in  alternation.  The  machine 
with  Benvolio  was  always  the  imagination;  but  in 
his  different  moods  it  kept  a  very  different  tune.  To 
an  acute  observer  his  face  itself  would  have  be 
trayed  these  variations ;  and  it  is  certain  that  his 
dress,  his  talk,  his  way  of  spending  his  time,  one 
•day  and  another,  abundantly  indicated  them.  Some 
times  he  looked  very  young — rosy,  radiant,  bloom 
ing,  younger  than  his  years.  Then  suddenly,  as  the 
light  struck  his  head  in  a  particular  manner,  you 
would  see  that  his  golden  locks  contained  a  surpris 
ing  number  of  silver  threads ;  and  with  your  atten 
tion  quickened  by  this  discovery,  you  would  pro 
ceed  to  detect  something  grave  and  discreet  in  his 
smile — something  vague  and  ghostly,  like  the  dim 
adumbration  of  the  darker  half  of  the  lunar  disk. 
You  might  have  met  Benvolio,  in  certain  moods, 
dressed  like  a  man  of  the  highest  fashion — wear 
ing  his  hat  on  his  ear,  a  rose  in  his  buttonhole,  a 
wonderful  intaglio  or  an  antique  Syracusan  coin, 
by  way  of  a  pin,  in  his  cravat.  Then,  on  the  mor- 


Benvolio  207 


row,  you  .would  have  espied  him  braving  the  sun 
shine  in  a  rusty  scholar's  coat,  with  his  hat  pulled 
over  his  brow — a  costume  wholly  at  odds  with  flow 
ers  and  gems.  It  was  all  a  matter  of  fancy ;  but  his 
fancy  was  a  weather-cock  and  faced  east  or  west, 
as  the  wind  blew.  His  conversation  matched  his 
coat  and  trousers ;  he  talked  one  day  the  talk  of  the 
town ;  he  chattered,  he  gossiped,  he  asked  questions 
and  told  stories;  you  would  have  said  that  he  was 
a  charming  fellow  for  a  dinner  party  or  the  pauses 
of  a  cotillon.  The  next  he  either  talked  philosophy 
or  politics,  or  said  nothing  at  all ;  he  was  absent  and 
indifferent;  he  was  thinking  his  own  thoughts;  he 
had  a  book  in  his  pocket,  and  evidently  he  was  com 
posing  one  in  his  head.  At  home  he  lived  in  two 
chambers.  One  was  an  immense  room  hung  with 
pictures,  lined  with  books,  draped  with  rugs  and 
tapestries,  decorated  with  a  multitude  of  ingenious 
devices  (for  of  all  these  things  he  was  very  fond)  ; 
the  other,  his  sleeping-room,  was  almost  as  bare  as 
a  monastic  cell.  It  had  a  meagre  little  strip  of  car 
pet  on  the  floor,  and  a  dozen  well-thumbed  volumes 
of  classic  poets  and  sages  on  the  mantel-shelf.  On 
the  wall  hung  three  or  four  coarsely  engraved  por 
traits  of  the  most  exemplary  of  these  worthies-;  these 
were  the  only  ornaments.  But  the  room  had  the 
charm  of  a  great  window,  in  a  deep  embrasure,  look 
ing  out  upon  a  tangled,  silent,  moss-grown  garden, 


208 Master  Eustace 

and  in  the  embrasure  stood  the  little  ink-blotted  table 
at  which  Benvolio  did  most  of  his  poetic  scribbling. 
The  windows  of  his  sumptuous  sitting-room  com 
manded  a  wide  public  square,  where  people  were 
always  passing  and  lounging,  where  military  music 
used  to  play  on  vernal  nights,  and  half  the  life  of 
the  great  town  went  forward.  At  the  risk  of  your 
thinking  our  hero  a  sad  idler,  I  will  say  that  he 
spent  an  inordinate  amount  of  time  in  gazing  out  of 
/  these  windows  (on  either  side),  with  his  elbows  on 
the  sill.  The  garden  did  not  belong  to  the  house 
which  he  inhabited,  but  to  a  neighboring  one,  and 
the  proprietor,  a  graceless  old  miser,  was  very  chary 
of  permits  to  visit  his  domain.  But  Benvolio's  fancy 
used  to  wander  through  the  alleys  without  stirring 
the  long  arms  of  the  untended  plants,  and  to  bend 
over  the  heavy-headed  flowers  without  leaving  a 
footprint  on  their  beds.  It  was  here  that  his  hap 
piest  thoughts  came  to  him — that  inspiration  (as  we 
may  say,  speaking  of  a  man  of  the  poetic  tempera 
ment)  descended  upon  him  in  silence,  and  for  cer 
tain  divine,  appreciable  moments  stood  poised  along 
the  course  of  his  scratching  quill.  It  was  not,  how 
ever,  that  he  had  not  spent  some  very  charming 
hours  in  the  larger,  richer  apartment.  He  used  to 
receive  his  friends  there — sometimes  in  great  num 
bers,  sometimes  at  boisterous,  many-voiced  suppers, 
which  lasted  far  into  the  night.  When  these  enter- 


Benvolio  209 


tainments  were  over  he  never  made  a  direct  tran 
sition  to  his  little  scholar's  cell,  with  its  garden  view. 
He  went  out  and  wandered  for  an  hour  through  the 
dark,  sleeping  streets  of  the  town,  ridding  himself  of 
the  fumes  of  wine,  and  feeling  not  at  all  tipsy,  but 
intensely,  portentously  sober.  More  than  once,  when 
he  came  back  and  prepared  to  go  to  bed,  he  had  seen 
the  first  faint  glow  of  dawn  trembling  upward  over 
the  tree  tops  of  his  garden.  His  friends,  coming  to 
see  him,  often  found  the  greater  room  empty,  and, 
advancing,  pounded  at  the  door  of  his  chamber. 
But  he  frequently  kept  quiet,  not  desiring  in  the 
least  to  see  them,  knowing  exactly  what  they  were 
going  to  say,  and  not  thinking  it  worth  hearing. 
Then,  hearing  them  stride  away,  and  the  outer  door 
close  behind  them,  he  would  come  forth  and  take  a 
turn  in  his  slippers,  over  his  Persian  carpets,  and 
glance  out  of  the  window  and  see  his  defeated  visi 
tant  stand  scratching  his  chin  in  the  sunny  square, 
and  then  laugh  lightly  to  himself — as  is  said  to  be 
the  habit  of  the  scribbling  tribe  in  moments  of  pro 
duction. 

Although  he  had  a  family  he  enjoyed  extreme  lib 
erty.  His  family  was  so  large,  his  brothers  and  sis 
ters  so  numerous,  that  he  could  absent  himself  con 
stantly  and  be  little  missed.  Sometimes  he  used 
this  privilege  freely;  he  tired  of  people  whom  he 
had  seen  very  often,  and  he  had  seen,  of  course,  an 


210 Master  Eustace 

immense  deal  of  his  family.  At  others  he  was  ex 
tremely  domestic;  he  suddenly  found  solitude  de 
pressing,  and  it  seemed  to  him  that  if  one  sought 
society  as  a  refuge,  one  needed  to  be  on  familiar 
terms  with  it,  and  that  with  no  one  was  familiarity 
so  natural  as  among  people  who  had  grown  up  at  a 
common  fireside.  Nevertheless  it  frequently  oc 
curred  to  him — for  sooner  or  later  everything  oc 
curred  to  him — that  he  was  too  independent  and  ir 
responsible;  that  he  would  be  happier  if  his  hands 
were  sometimes  tied,  so  long  as  the  knot  were  not 
too  tight.  His  curiosity  about  all  things  was  great, 
and  he  satisfied  it  largely  whenever  the  occasion 
offered  itself;  but  as  the  years  went  by  this  pursuit 
of  impartial  science  appeared  to  produce  a  singular 
result.  He  became  conscious  of  an  intellectual 
condition  similar  to  that  of  a  palate  which  has  lost 
its  relish.  To  a  man  with  a  disordered  appetite  all 
things  taste  alike,  and  so  it  seemed  to  Benvolio  that 
his  imagination  was  losing  its  sense  of  a  better  and 
a  worse.  It  had  still  its  glowing  moments,  its  feasts 
and  its  holidays ;  but,  on  the  whole,  the  spectacle  of 
human  life  was  growing  flat  and  stale.  This  is  sim 
ply  a  wordy  way  of  expressing  that  pregnantly 
synthetic  fact — Benvolio  was  blase.  He  knew  it,  he 
knew  it  betimes,  and  he  regretted  it  acutely.  He 
believed  that  such  a  consummation  was  not  abso 
lutely  necessary — especially  at  his  time  of  life;  for 


Benvolio  211 


he  said  to  himself  that  there  must  be  a  way  of  using 
one's  faculties  which  will  keep  their  edges  sharp. 
There  was  a  certain  possible  economy  in  one's  deal 
ings  with  life  which  would  make  the  two  ends  meet 
at  the  last.  What  was  it  ?  The  wise  man's  duty  was 
to  find  it  out.  One  of  its  rudiments,  he  believed, 
was  that  one  grows  tired  of  one's  self  sooner  than 
of  anything  else  in  the  world.  Idleness,  every  one 
admitted,  was  the  greatest  of  follies;  but  idleness 
was  subtle  and  exacted  tribute  under  a  hundred 
plausible  disguises.  One  was  often  idle  when  one 
seemed  to  be  ardently  occupied ;  one  was  always  idle 
(it  might  be  concluded)  when  one's  occupations  had 
not  a  high  aim.  One  was  idle  therefore  when  one 
was  working  simply  for  one's  self.  Curiosity  for 
curiosity's  sake,  art  for  art's  sake,  these  were  es 
sentially  broken-winded  steeds.  Ennui  was  at  the 
end  of  everything  that  did  not  entangle  us  somehow 
with  human  life.  To  get  entangled,  therefore,  pon 
dered  Benvolio,  should  be  the  wise  man's  aim.  Poor 
Benvolio  had  to  ponder  all  this,  because,  as  I  say,  he 
was  a  poet  and  not  a  man  of  action.  A  fine  fellow 
of  the  latter  stamp  would  have  solved  the  problem 
without  knowing  it,  and  bequeathed  to  his  fellow 
men  not  cold  formulas  but  vivid  examples.  But 
Benvolio  had  often  said  to  himself  that  he  was  born 
to  imagine  great  things — not  to  do  them;  and  he 
had  said  this  by  no  means  sadly,  for,  on  the  whole, 


212 Master  Eustace 

he  was  very  well  content  with  his  portion.  Imagine 
them  he  determined  he  would,  and  on  a  most  mag 
nificent  scale.  He  would  entangle  himself  at  least 
in  a  mesh  of  work — work  of  the  most  profound  and 
elaborate  sort.  He  would  handle  great  ideas,  he 
would  enunciate  great  truths,  he  would  write  im 
mortal  verses.  In  all  this  there  was  a  large  amount 
of  talent  and  a  liberal  share  of  ambition.  I  will  not 
say  that  Benvolio  was  a  man  of  genius ;  it  may  seem 
to  make  the  distinction  too  cheap ;  but  he  was  at  any 
rate  a  man  with  an  intellectual  passion;  and  if,  being 
near  him,  you  had  been  able  to  listen  intently  enough, 
he  would,  like  the  great  people  of  his  craft,  have 
seemed  to  emit  something  of  that  vague,  magical 
murmur — the  voice  of  the  infinite — which  lurks  in 
the  involutions  of  a  sea-shell.  He  himself,  by  the 
way,  had  once  made  use  of  this  little  simile,  and 
had  written  a  poem  in  which  it  was  melodiously  set 
forth  that  the  poetic  minds  scattered  about  the  world 
correspond  to  the  little  shells  one  picks  up  on  the 
beach,  all  resonant  with  the  echo  of  ocean.  The 
whole  thing  was,  of  course,  rounded  off  with  the 
sands  of  time,  the  waves  of  history,  and  other  har 
monious  conceits. 


II 


BUT  (as  you  are  naturally  expecting  to  hear) 
Benvolio  knew  perfectly  well  that  there  is  one  way 
of  getting  entangled  which  is  far  more  effectual 
than  any  other — the  way  that  a  charming  woman 
points  out.  Benvolio  was  of  course  in  love.  Who 
was  his  mistress,  you  ask  (I  flatter  myself  with 
some  impatience),  and  was  she  pretty,  was  she  kind, 
was  he  successful?  Hereby  hangs  my  tale,  which  I 
must  relate  categorically. 

Benvolio' s  mistress  was  a  lady  whom  (as  I  can 
not  tell  you  her  real  name)  it  will  be  quite  in  keep 
ing  to  speak  of  as  the  Countess.  The  Countess  was 
a  young  widow,  who  had  some  time  since  divested 
herself  of  her  mourning  weeds — which  indeed  she 
had  never  worn  but  very  lightly.  She  was  rich,  ex 
tremely  pretty,  and  free  to  do  as  pleased  her.  She 
was  passionately  fond  of  pleasure  and  admiration, 
and  they  gushed  forth  at  her  feet  in  unceasing 
streams.  Her  beauty  was  not  of  the  conventional 

213 


214 Master  Eustace 

type,  but  it  was  dazzlingly  brilliant ;  few  faces  were 
more  expressive,  more  fascinating.  Hers  was  never 
the  same  for  two  days  together;  it  reflected  her 
momentary  circumstances  with  extraordinary  vivid 
ness,  and  in  knowing  her  you  had  the  advantage  of 
knowing  a  dozen  different  women.  She  was  clever 
and  accomplished,  and  had  the  credit  of  being  per 
fectly  amiable;  indeed,  it  was  difficult  to  imagine  a 
person  combining  a  greater  number  of  the  precious 
gifts  of  nature  and  fortune.  She  represented  felic 
ity,  gaiety,  success ;  she  was  made  to  charm,  to  play 
a  part,  to  exert  a  sway.  She  lived  in  a  great  house, 
behind  high  verdure-muffled  walls,  where  other 
Countesses,  in  other  years,  had  been  the  charm  and 
the  envy  of  their  time.  It  was  an  antiquated  quar 
ter,  into  which  the  tide  of  commerce  had  lately  be 
gun  to  roll  heavily;  but  the  turbid  waves  of  trade 
broke  in  vain  against  the  Countess's  enclosure,  and 
if  in  her  garden  and  her  drawing-room  you  heard 
the  deep  uproar  of  the  city,  it  was  only  as  a  vague 
undertone  to  sweeter  things — to  music,  and  witty 
talk,  and  tender  dialogue.  There  was  something 
very  striking  in  this  unyielding,  elegant  privacy,  in 
the  midst  of  public  toil  and  traffic. 

Benvolio  was  a  great  deal  at  this  lady's  house ;  he 
rarely  desired  better  entertainment.  I  spoke  just 
now  of  privacy ;  but  privacy  was  not  what  he  found 
there,  nor  what  he  wished  to  find.  He  went  there 


Benvolio  215 


when  he  wished  to  learn  with  the  least  trouble  what 
was  going  on  in  the  world,  for  the  talk  of  the  people 
the  Countess  generally  had  about  her  was  an  epi 
tome  of  the  gossip,  the  rumors,  the  interests,  the 
hopes  and  fears  of  polite  society.  She  was  a  thor 
oughly  liberal  hostess;  all  she  asked  was  to  be  en 
tertained;  if  you  would  contribute  to  the  common 
fund  of  amusement,  of  discussion,  you  were  a  wel 
come  guest.  Sooner  or  later,  among  your  fellow- 
guests,  you  encountered  every  one  of  consequence. 
There  were  frivolous  people  and  wise  people;  peo 
ple  whose  fortune  was  in  their  pockets,  and  people 
whose  fortune  was  in  their  brains;  people  deeply 
concerned  in  public  affairs,  and  people  concerned 
only  with  the  fit  of  their  garments  or  with  the  num 
ber  of  the  people  who  looked  round  when  their 
names  were  announced.  Benvolio,  who  liked  a  large 
and  various  social  spectacle,  appreciated  all  this; 
but  he  was  best  pleased,  as  a  general  thing,  when  he 
found  the  Countess  alone.  This  was  often  his  for 
tune,  for  the  simple  reason  that  when  the  Countess 
expected  him,  she  invariably  had  herself  refused  to 
every  one  else.  This  is  almost  an  answer  to  your 
inquiry  whether  Benvolio  was  successful  in  his  suit. 
As  yet,  strictly  speaking,  there  was  no  suit.  Ben 
volio  had  never  made  love  to  the  Countess.  This 
sounds  very  strange,  but  it  is  nevertheless  true.  He 
was  in  love  with  her ;  he  thought  her  the  most  charm- 


216 Master  Eustace 

ing  creature  conceivable;  he  spent  hours  with  her 
alone  by  her  own  orders ;  he  had  had  opportunity — 
he  had  been  up  to  his  neck  in  opportunity — and  yet 
he  had  never  said  to  her,  as  would  have  seemed  so 
natural,  "Dear  Countess,  I  beseech  you  to  be  my 
wife."  If  you  are  surprised,  I  may  also  confide  to 
you  that  the  Countess  was;  and  surprise  under  the 
circumstances  very  easily  became  displeasure.  It  is 
by  no  means  certain  that  if  Benvolio  had  made  the 
little  speech  we  have  just  imagined,  the  Countess 
would  have  fallen  into  his  arms,  confessed  to  a 
mutual  flame,  and  rung  in  finis  to  our  tale,  with  the 
wedding  bells.  But  she  nevertheless  expected  him  in 
civility  to  pay  her  this  supreme  compliment.  Her 
answer  would  be — what  it  might  be ;  but  his  silence 
was  a  permanent  offence.  Every  man,  roughly 
speaking,  had  asked  the  Countess  to  marry  him,  and 
every  man  had  been  told  that  she  was  much  obliged, 
but  had  no  idea  of  marrying.  Now  here,  with  the 
one  man  who  failed  to  ask  her,  she  had  a  great  idea 
of  it,  and  his  forbearance  gave  her  more  to  think 
about  than  all  the  importunities  of  all  her  other 
suitors.  The  truth  was  she  liked  Benvolio  ex 
tremely,  and  his  independence  rendered  him  excel 
lent  service.  The  Countess  had  a  very  lively  fancy, 
and  she  had  fingered,  nimbly  enough,  the  volume  of 
the  young  man's  merits.  She  was  by  nature  a  trifle 
cold;  she  rarely  lost  her  head;  she  measured  each 


Benvolio  217 


step  as  she  took  it;  she  had  had  little  fancies  and 
incipient  passions ;  but  on  the  whole  she  had  thought 
much  more  about  love  than  felt  it.  She  had  often 
tried  to  form  an  image  mentally  of  the  sort  of  man 
it  would  be  well  for  her  to  love — for  so  it  was  she 
expressed  it.  She  had  succeeded  but  indifferently, 
and  her  imagination  had  gone  a-begging  until  the 
day  she  met  Benvolio.  Then  it  seemed  to  her  that 
her  quest  was  ended — her  prize  gained.  This  ner 
vous,  ardent,  deep-eyed  youth  struck  her  as  the  har 
monious  counterpart  of  her  own  facile  personality. 
This  conviction  rested  with  the  Countess  on  a  fine 
sense  of  propriety  which  it  would  be  vain  to  attempt 
to  analyze;  he  was  different  from  herself  and  from 
the  other  men  who  surrounded  her,  and  to  be  com 
plete  it  seemed  to  her  that  she  ought  to  have  some 
thing  of  that  sort  in  her  train.  In  the  old  days  she 
would  have  had  it  in  the  person  of  a  troubadour  or 
a  knight-errant ;  now,  a  woman  who  was  in  her  own 
right  a  considerable  social  figure  might  conveniently 
annex  it  in  the  form  of  a  husband.  I  don't  know 
how  good  a  judge  the  Countess  was  of  such  matters, 
but  she  believed  that  the  world  would  hear  of  Ben 
volio.  She  had  beauty,  ancestry,  money,  luxury,  but 
she  had  not  genius;  and  if  genius  was  to  be  had, 
why  not  secure  it,  and  complete  the  list?  This  is 
doubtless  a  rather  coarse  statement  of  the  Countess's 
argument;  but  you  have  it  thrown  in  gratis,  as  it 


218 Master  Eustace 

were;  for  all  I  am  bound  to  tell  you  is  that  this 
charming  young  woman  took  a  fancy  to  this  clever 
young  man,  and  that  she  used  to  cry  sometimes  for 
a  quarter  of  a  minute  when  she  imagined  he  didn't 
care  for  her.  Her  tears  were  wasted,  because  he  did 
care  for  her — more  even  than  she  would  have  imag 
ined  if  she  had  taken  a  favorable  view  of  the  case. 
But  Benvolio,  I  cannot  too  much  repeat,  was  an  ex 
ceedingly  complex  character,  and  there  was  many  a 
hiatus  in  the  logic  of  his  conduct.  The  Countess 
charmed  him,  excited  him,  interested  him;  he  did 
her  abundant  justice — more  than  justice ;  but  at  the 
end  of  all  he  felt  that  she  failed  to  satisfy  him.  If 
a  man  could  have  half  a  dozen  wives — and  Ben 
volio  had  once  maintained,  poetically,  that  he  ought 
to  have — the  Countess  would  do  very  well  for  one 
of  them — possibly  even  for  the  best  of  them.  But 
she  would  not  serve  for  all  seasons  and  all  moods; 
she  needed  a  complement,  an  alternative — what  the 
French  call  a  repoussoir.  One  day  he  was  going  to 
see  her,  knowing  that  he  was  expected.  There  was 
to  be  a  number  of  other  people — in  fact,  a  very  bril 
liant  assembly;  but  Benvolio  knew  that  a  certain 
touch  of  the  hand,  a  certain  glance  of  the  eye,  a  cer 
tain  caress  of  the  voice,  would  be  reserved  for  him 
alone.  Happy  Benvolio,  you  will  say,  to  be  going 
about  the  world  with  such  charming  secrets  as  this 
locked  up  in  his  young  heart !  Happy  Benvolio  in- 


Benvolio  219 


deed ;  but  mark  how  he  trifled  with  his  happiness. 
He  went  to  the  Countess's  gate,  but  he  went  no 
further;  he  stopped,  stood  there  a  moment,  frown 
ing  intensely,  and  biting  the  finger  of  his  glove ;  then 
suddenly  he  turned  and  strode  away  in  the  opposite 
direction.  He  walked  and  walked  and  left  the  town 
behind  him.  He  went  his  way  till  he  reached  the 
country,  and  here  he  bent  his  steps  toward  a  little 
wood  which  he  knew  very  well,  and  whither  indeed, 
on  a  spring  afternoon,  when  she  had  taken  a  fancy 
to  play  at  shepherd  and  shepherdess,  he  had  once 
come  with  the  Countess.  He  flung  himself  on  the 
grass,  on  the  edge  of  the  wood — not  in  the  same 
place  where  he  had  lain  at  the  Countess's  feet,  pull 
ing  sonnets  out  of  his  pocket  and  reading  them  one 
by  one ;  a  little  stream  flowed  beside  him ;  opposite, 
the  sun  was  declining;  the  distant  city  lay  before 
him,  lifting  its  towers  and  chimneys  against  the  red 
dening  western  sky.  The  twilight  fell  and  deep 
ened  and  the  stars  came  out.  Benvolio  lay  there 
thinking  that  he  preferred  them  to  the  Countess's 
wax  candles.  He  went  back  to  town  in  a 
farmer's  wagon,  talking  with  the  honest  rustic  who 
drove  it. 

Very  much  in  this  way,  when  he  had  been  on  the 
point  of  knocking  at  the  gate  of  the  Countess's  heart 
and  asking  ardently  to  be  admitted,  he  had  paused, 
stood  frowning,  and  then  turned  short  and  rambled 


220 Master  Eustace 

away  into  solitude.  She  never  knew  how  near,  two 
or  three  times,  he  had  come.  Two  or  three  times 
she  had  accused  him  of  being  rude,  and  this  was 
nothing  but  the  backward  swing  of  the  pendulum. 
One  day  it  seemed  to  her  that  he  was  altogether  too 
vexatious,  and  she  reproached  herself  with  her  good 
nature.  She  had  made  herself  too  cheap;  such  con 
duct  was  beneath  her  dignity;  she  would  take  an 
other  tone.  She  closed  her  door  to  him,  and  bade 
her  people  say,  whenever  he  came,  that  she  was  en 
gaged.  At  first  Benvolio  only  wondered.  Oddly 
enough,  he  was  not  what  is  commonly  called  sensi 
tive  ;  he  never  supposed  you  meant  to  offend  him ; 
not  being  at  all  impertinent  himself,  he  was  not  on 
the  watch  for  impertinence  in  others.  Only,  when 
he  fairly  caught  you  in  the  act  he  was  immensely 
disgusted.  Therefore,  as  I  say,  he  simply  wondered 
what  had  suddenly  made  the  Countess  so  busy ;  then 
he  remembered  certain  other  charming  persons 
whom  he  knew,  and  went  to  see  how  the  world 
wagged  with  them.  But  they  rendered  the  Countess 
eminent  service :  she  gained  by  comparison,  and 
Benvolio  began  to  miss  her.  All  that  other  charm 
ing  women  were  who  led  the  life  of  the  world  (as  it 
is  called)  the  Countess  was  in  a  superior,  in  a  per 
fect  degree ;  she  was  the  ripest  fruit  of  a  high  civili 
zation;  her  companions  and  rivals,  beside  her,  had 
but  a  pallid  bloom,  an  acrid  savor.  Benvolio  had  a 


Benvolio  221 


relish  in  all  things  for  the  best,  and  he  found  him 
self  breathing  sighs  under  the  Countess's  darkened 
windows.  He  wrote  to  her  asking  why  in  the  world 
she  treated  him  so  cruelly,  and  then  she  knew  that 
her  charm  was  working.  She  was  careful  not  to 
answer  his  letter,  and  to  have  him  refused  at  her 
gate  as  inexorably  as  ever.  It  is  an  ill  wind  that 
blows  nobody  good,  and  Benvolio,  one  night  after 
his  dismissal,  wandered  about  the  moonlit  streets  till 
nearly  morning,  composing  the  finest  verses  he  had 
ever  produced.  The  subscribers  to  the  magazine  to 
which  he  sent  them  were  at  least  the  gainers.  But 
unlike  many  poets,  Benvolio  did  not  on  this  occa 
sion  bury  his  passion  in  his  poem;  or  if  he  did,  its 
ghost  was  stalking  abroad  the  very  next  night.  He 
went  again  to  the  Countess's  gate,  and  again  it  was 
closed  in  his  face.  So,  after  a  very  moderate 
amount  of  hesitation,  he  bravely  (and  with  a  dex 
terity  which  surprised  him)  scaled  her  garden  wall 
and  dropped  down  in  the  moonshine,  upon  her  lawn. 
I  don't  know  whether  she  was  expecting  him,  but  if 
she  had  been,  the  matter  could  not  have  been  better 
arranged.  She  was  sitting  in  a  little  niche  of  shrub 
bery,  with  no  protector  but  a  microscopic  lap-dog. 
She  pretended  to  be  scandalized  at  his  audacity,  but 
his  audacity  carried  the  hour.  "This  time  certainly," 
thought  the  Countess,  "he  will  make  his  declaration. 
He  didn't  jump  that  wall,  at  the  risk  of  his  neck, 


222 Master  Eustace 

0J3 

simply  to  ask  me  for  a  cup  of  tea."  Not  a  bit  of 
it;  Benvolio  was  devoted,  but  he  was  not  more  ex 
plicit  than  before.  He  declared  that  this  was  the 
happiest  hour  of  his  life;  that  there  was  a  charming 
air  of  romance  in  his  position;  that,  honestly,  he 
thanked  the  Countess  for  having  made  him  desper 
ate;  that  he  would  never  come  to  see  her  again  but 
by  the  garden  wall ;  that  something,  to-night — what 
was  it? — was  vastly  becoming  to  her;  that  he  de 
voutly  hoped  she  would  receive  no  one  else ;  that  his 
admiration  for  her  was  unbounded;  that  the  stars, 
finally,  had  a  curious  pink  light !  He  looked  at  her, 
through  the  flower-scented  dusk,  with  admiring 
eyes;  but  he  looked  at  the  stars  as  well;  he  threw 
back  his  head  and  folded  his  arms,  and  let  the  con 
versation  lag  while  he  examined  the  constellations. 
He  observed  also  the  long  shafts  of  light  proceed 
ing  from  the  windows  of  the  house,  as  they  fell 
upon  the  lawn  and  played  among  the  shrubbery. 
The  Countess  had  always  thought  him  a  strange 
man,  but  to-night  she  thought  him  stranger  than 
ever.  She  became  satirical,  and  the  point  of  her 
satire  was  that  he  was  after  all  but  a  dull  fellow ; 
that  his  admiration  was  a  poor  compliment ;  that  he 
would  do  well  to  turn  his  attention  to  astronomy! 
In  answer  to  this  he  came  perhaps  (to  the  Countess's 
sense)  as  near  as  he  had  ever  come  to  making  a  dec 
laration. 


Benvolio  223 


"Dear  lady,"  he  said,  "you  don't  begin  to  know 
how  much  I  admire  you !" 

She  left  her  place  at  this,  and  walked  about  her 
lawn,  looking1  at  him  askance  while  he  talked,  trail 
ing  her  embroidered  robe  over  the  grass,  and  finger 
ing  the  folded  petals  of  her  flowers.  He  made  a 
sort  of  sentimental  profession  of  faith;  he  assured 
her  that  she  represented  his  ideal  of  a  certain  sort 
of  woman.  This  last  phrase  made  her  pause  a  mo 
ment  and  stare  at  him,  wide-eyed.  "Oh,  I  mean  the 
finest  sort,"  he  cried — "the  sort  that  exerts  the  wid 
est  sway.  You  represent  the  world  and  everything 
that  the  world  can  give,  and  you  represent  them  at 
their  best — in  their  most  generous,  most  graceful, 
most  inspiring  form.  If  a  man  were  a  revolutionist, 
you  would  reconcile  him  to  society.  You  are  a  di 
vine  embodiment  of  all  the  amenities,  the  refine 
ments,  the  complexities  of  life !  You  are  the  flower 
of  urbanity,  of  culture,  of  tradition!  You  are  the 
product  of  so  many  influences  that  it  widens  one's 
horizon  to  know  you;  of  you  too  it  is  true  that  to 
admire  you  is  a  liberal  education!  Your  charm  is 
irresistible;  I  never  approach  you  without  feeling 
it." 

Compliments  agreed  with  the  Countess,  as  we  may 
say ;  they  not  only  made  her  happier,  but  they  made 
her  better.  It  became  a  matter  of  conscience  with 
her  to  deserve  them.  These  were  magnificent  ones, 


224  Master  Eustace 

and  she  was  by  no  means  indifferent  to  them.  Her 
cheek  faintly  flushed,  her  eyes  vaguely  glowed,  and 
though  her  beauty,  in  the  literal  sense,  was  question 
able,  all  that  Benvolio  said  of  her  had  never  seemed 
more  true.  He  said  more  in  the  same  strain,  and 
she  listened  without  interrupting  him.  But  at  last 
she  suddenly  became  impatient ;  it  seemed  to  her  that 
this  was  after  all  a  tolerably  inexpensive  sort  of 
tribute.  But  she  did  not  betray  her  impatience  with 
any  petulance;  she  simply  shook  her  finger  a  mo 
ment,  to  enjoin  silence,  and  then  she  said,  in  a  voice 
of  extreme  gentleness — "You  have  too  much  imagi 
nation!"  He  answered  that  to  do  her  perfect  jus 
tice,  he  had  too  little.  To  this  she  replied  that  it 
was  not  of  her  any  longer  he  was  talking;  he  had 
left  her  far  behind.  He  was  spinning  fancies  about 
some  highly  subtilized  figment  of  his  brain.  The 
best  answer  to  this,  it  seemed  to  Benvolio,  was  to 
seize  her  hand  and  kiss  it.  I  don't  know  what  the 
Countess  thought  of  this  form  of  argument ;  I  incline 
to  think  it  both  pleased  and  vexed  her;  it  was  at 
once  too  much  and  too  little.  She  snatched  her 
hand  away  and  went  rapidly  into  the  house.  Al 
though  Benvolio  immediately  followed  her,  he  was 
unable  to  overtake  her ;  she  had  retired  into  impene 
trable  seclusion.  A  short  time  afterward  she  left 
town  and  went  for  the  summer  to  an  estate  which 
she  possessed  in  a  distant  part  of  the  country. 


Ill 


BENVOLIO  was  extremely  fond  of  the  country,  but 
he  remained  in  town  after  all  his  friends  had  de 
parted.  Many  of  them  made  him  say  he  would  come 
and  see  them.  He  promised,  or  half  promised,  but 
when  he  reflected  that  in  almost  every  case  he  would 
find  a  house  full  of  fellow-guests,  to  whose  pursuits 
he  would  have  to  conform,  and  that  if  he  rambled 
away  with  a  valued  duodecimo  in  his  pocket  to  spend 
thq  morning  alone  in  the  woods,  he  would  be  de 
nounced  as  a  marplot  and  a  selfish  brute,  he  felt  no 
great  desire  to  pack  his  bag.  He  had,  as  we  know, 
his  moods  of  expansion  and  of  contraction ;  he  had 
been  tolerably  expansive  for  many  months  past,  and 
now  the  tide  of  contraction  had  set  in.  And  then  I 
suspect  the  foolish  fellow  had  no  money  to  travel 
withal.  He  had  lately  put  all  his  available  funds 
into  the  purchase  of  a  picture — an  estimable  work 
of  the  Venetian  school,  suddenly  thrown  into  the 
market.  It  was  offered  for  a  moderate  sum,  and 

225 


226 Master  Eustace 

Benvolio,  who  was  one  of  the  first  to  see  it,  secured 
it  and  hung  it  triumphantly  in  his  room.  It  had  all 
the  classic  Venetian  glow,  and  he  used  to  lie  on  his 
divan  by  the  hour,  gazing  at  it.  It  had,  indeed,  a 
peculiar  property,  of  which  I  have  known  no  other 
example.  Most  pictures  that  are  remarkable  for 
their  color  (especially  if  they  have  been  painted  a 
couple  of  centuries)  need  a  flood  of  sunshine  on  the 
canvas  to  bring  it  out.  But  this  one  seemed  to  have 
a  hidden  radiance  of  its  own,  which  showed  bright 
est  when  the  room  was  half  darkened.  When  Ben 
volio  wished  especially  to  enjoy  his  treasure  he 
dropped  his  Venetian  blinds,  and  the  picture  glowed 
forth  into  the  cool  dusk  with  enchanting  effect.  It 
represented,  in  a  fantastic  way,  the  story  of  Per 
seus  and  Andromeda — the  beautiful  naked  maiden 
chained  to  a  rock,  on  which,  with  picturesque  incon 
gruity,  a  wild  fig-tree  was  growing ;  the  green  Adri 
atic  tumbling  at  her  feet,  and  a  splendid  brown- 
limbed  youth  in  a  curious  helmet  hovering  near  her 
on  a  winged,  horse.  The  journey  his  fancy  made 
as  he  lay  and  looked  at  his  picture  Benvolio  pre 
ferred  to  any  journey  he  might  make  by  the  public 
conveyances. 

But  he  resorted  for  entertainment,  as  he  had  often 
done  before,  to  the  windows  overlooking  the  old 
garden  behind  his  house.  As  the  summer  deepened 
of  course  the  charm  of  the  garden  increased.  It 


Benvolio  227 


grew  more  tangled  and  bosky  and  mossy,  and  sent 
forth  sweeter  and  heavier  odors  into  the  neighbor 
ing  air.  It  was  a  perfect  solitude :  Benvolio  had 
never  seen  a  visitor  there.  One  day,  therefore,  at 
this  time,  it  puzzled  him  most  agreeably  to  perceive 
a  young  girl  sitting  under  one  of  the  trees.  She 
sat  there  a  long  time,  and  though  she  was  at  a  dis 
tance,  he  managed,  by  looking  long  enough,  to  make 
out  that  she  was  pretty.  She  was  dressed  in  black, 
and  when  she  left  her  place  her  step  had  a  kind  of 
nun-like  gentleness  and  demureness.  Although  she 
was  alone,  she  seemed  shy  and  half -startled.  She 
wandered  away  and  disappeared  from  sight,  save 
that  here  and  there  he  saw  her  white  parasol  gleam 
ing  in  the  gaps  of  the  foliage.  Then  she  came  back 
to  her  seat  under  the  great  tree,  and  remained  there 
for  some  time,  arranging  in  her  lap  certain  flowers 
that  she  had  gathered.  Then  she  rose  again  and 
vanished,  and  Benvolio  waited  in  vain  for  her  re 
turn.  She  had  evidently  gone  into  the  house.  The 
next  day  he  saw  her  again,  and  the  next,  and  the 
next.  On  these  occasions  she  had  a  book  in  her 
hand,  and  she  sat  in  her  former  place  a  long  time, 
and  read  it  with  an  air  of  great  attention.  Now  and 
then  she  raised  her  head  and  glanced  toward  the 
house  as  if  to  keep  something  in  sight  which  di 
vided  her  care ;  and  once  or  twice  she  laid  down  her 
book  and  tripped  away  to  her  hidden  duties  with  a 


228 Master  Eustace 

lighter  step  than  she  had  shown  the  first  day.  Ben- 
volio  had  a  fancy  that  she  had  an  invalid  parent,  or 
a  relation  of  some  kind,  who  was  unable  to  walk, 
and  had  been  moved  into  a  window  overlooking  the 
garden.  She  always  took  up  her  book  again  when 
she  came  back,  and  bent  her  pretty  head  over  it  with 
charming  earnestness.  Benvolio  had  already  discov 
ered  that  her  head  was  pretty.  He  fancied  it  re 
sembled  a  certain  exquisite  little  head  on  a  Greek 
silver  coin  which  lay,  with  several  others,  in  an  agate 
cup  on  his  table.  You  see  he  had  also  already  taken 
to  fancying,  and  I  offer  this  as  the  excuse  for  his 
staring  at  his  modest  neighbor  by  the  hour  in  this 
inordinately  idle  fashion.  But  he  was  not  really 
idle,  because  he  was — I  can't  say  falling  in  love  with 
her :  he  knew  her  too  little  for  that,  and  besides,  he 
was  in  love  with  the  Countess — but  because  he  was 
at  any  rate  cudgelling  his  brains  about  her.  Who 
was  she  ?  what  was  she  ?  why  had  he  never  seen  her 
before?  The  house  in  which  she  apparently  lived 
was  on  another  street  from  Benvolio's  own,  but  he 
went  out  of  his  way  on  purpose  to  look  at  it.  It 
was  an  ancient,  gray,  sad-faced  structure,  with 
grated  windows  on  the  ground  floor ;  it  looked  like  a 
convent  or  a  prison.  Over  a  wall,  beside  it,  there 
tumbled  into  the  street  some  stray  tendrils  of  a  wild 
vine  from  Benvolio's  garden.  Suddenly  Benvolio 
began  to  fancy  that  the  book  the  young  girl  in  the 


Benvolio  229 


garden  was  reading  was  none  other  than  a  volume 
of  his  own,  put  forth  some  six  months  before.  His 
volume  had  a  white  cover  and  so  had  this;  white 
covers  are  rather  rare,  and  there  was  nothing  im 
possible  either  in  this  young  lady's  reading  his  book 
or  in  her  finding  it  interesting.  Very  many  other 
women  had  done  the  same.  Benvolio's  neighbor  had 
a  pencil  in  her  pocket,  which  she  every  now  and  then 
drew  forth,  to  make  with  it  a  little  mark  on  her 
page.  This  quiet  gesture  gave  the  young  man  an 
exquisite  pleasure. 

I  am  ashamed  to  say  how  much  time  he  spent,  for 
a  week,  at  his  window.  Every  day  the  young  girl 
came  into  the  garden.  At  last  there  befell  a  rainy 
day — a  long,  warm  summer's  rain — and  she  stayed 
within  doors.  He  missed  her  quite  acutely,  and 
wondered,  half-smiling,  half-frowning,  at  her  ab 
sence  making  such  a  difference  with  him.  He  actu 
ally  depended  upon  her.  He  didn't  know  her  name ; 
he  knew  neither  the  color  of  her  eyes  nor  the  shade 
of  her  hair,  nor  the  sound  of  her  voice ;  it  was  very 
likely  that  if  he  were  to  meet  her  face  to  face  else 
where,  he  would  not  recognize  her.  But  she  inter 
ested  him ;  he  liked  her ;  he  found  her  little  indefinite, 
black-dressed  figure  sympathetic.  He  used  to  find 
the  Countess  sympathetic,  and  certainly  the  Countess 
was  as  unlike  this  quiet  garden  nymph  as  she  could 
very  well  be  and  be  yet  a  charming  woman.  Ben- 


230 Master  Eustace 

volio's  sympathies,  as  we  know,  were  broad.  After 
the  rain  the  young  girl  came  out  again,  and  now  she 
had  another  book,  having  apparently  finished  Ben- 
volio's.  He  was  gratified  to  observe  that  she  be 
stowed  upon  this  one  a  much  more  wandering  at 
tention.  Sometimes  she  let  it  drop  listlessly  at  her 
side,  and  seemed  to  lose  herself  in  maidenly  reverie. 
Was  she  thinking  how  much  more  beautiful  Ben 
volio' s  verses  were  than  others  o»f  the  day?  Was 
she  perhaps  repeating  them  to  herself?  It  charmed 
Benvolio  to  suppose  she  might  be;  for  he  was  not 
spoiled  in  this  respect.  The  Countess  knew  none 
of  his  poetry  by  heart ;  she  was  nothing  of  a  reader. 
She  had  his  book  on  her  table,  but  he  once  noticed 
that  half  the  leaves  were  uncut. 

After  a  couple  of  days  of  sunshine  the  rain  came 
back  again,  to  our  hero's  infinite  annoyance,  and  this 
time  it  lasted  several  days.  The  garden  lay  drip 
ping  and  desolate;  its  charm  had  quite  departed. 
These  days  passed  gloomily  for  Benvolio ;  he  decided 
that  rainy  weather,  in  summer,  in  town,  was  intol 
erable.  He  began  to  think  of  the  Gountess  again. 
He  was  sure  that  over  her  broad  lands  the  summer 
sun  was  shining.  He  saw  them,  in  envious  fancy,' 
studded  with  joyous  Watteau  groups,  feasting  and 
making  music  under  the  shade  of  ancestral  beeches. 
What  a  charming  life!  he  thought — what  brilliant, 
enchanted,  memorable  days !  He  had  said  the  very 


Benvolio  231 


reverse  of  all  this,  as  you  remember,  three  weeks 
before.  I  don't  know  that  he  had  ever  formulated 
the  idea  that  men  of  imagination  are  not  bound  to 
be  consistent,  but  he  certainly  conformed  to  its  spirit. 
We  are  not,  however,  by  any  means  at  the  end  of 
his  inconsistencies.  He  immediately  wrote  a  letter 
to  the  Countess  asking  her  if  he  might  pay  her  a 
visit. 

Shortly  after  he  had  sent  his  letter  the  weather 
mended,  and  he  went  out  to  take  a  walk.  The  sun 
was  near  setting;  the  streets  were  all  ruddy  and 
golden  with  its  light,  and  the  scattered  rain-clouds, 
broken  into  a  thousand  little  particles,  were  flecking 
the  sky  like  a  shower  of  opals  and  amethysts.  Ben 
volio  stopped,  as  he  sauntered  along,  to  gossip  a 
while  with  his  friend  the  bookseller.  The  book 
seller  was  a  foreigner  and  a  man  of  taste ;  his  shop 
was  on  the  corner  of  the  great  square.  When  Ben 
volio  went  in  he  was  serving  a  lady,  and  the  lady 
was  dressed  in  black.  Benvolio  just  now  found  it 
natural  to  notice  a  lady  who  was  dressed  in  black, 
and  the  fact  that  this  lady's  face  was  averted  made 
observation  at  once  more  easy  and  more  fruitless. 
But  at  last  her  errand  was  finished;  she  had  been 
ordering  several  books,  and  the  bookseller  was  writ 
ing  down  their  names.  Then  she  turned  round,  and 
Benvolio  saw  her  face.  He  stood  staring  at  her 
most  inconsiderately,  for  he  felt  an  immediate  cer- 


232 Master  Eustace 

tainty  that  she  was  the  bookish  damsel  of  the  gar 
den.  She  gave  a  glance  round  the  shop,  at  the  books 
on  the  walls,  at  the  prints  and  busts,  the  apparatus  of 
learning,  in  various  forms,  that  it  contained,  and 
then,  with  the  gentle,  half -furtive  step  which  Ben- 
volio  now  knew  so  well,  she  took  her  departure. 
Benvolio  seized  the  startled  bookseller  by  the  two 
hands  and  besieged  him  with  questions.  The  book 
seller,  however,  was  able  to  answer  but  few  of  them. 
The  young  girl  had  been  in  his  shop  but  once  before, 
and  had  simply  left  an  address,  without  any  name. 
It  was  the  address  of  which  Benvolio  had  assured 
himself.  The  books  she  had  ordered  were  all  learned 
works — disquisitions  on  philosophy,  on  history,  on 
the  natural  sciences.  She  seemed  an  expert  in  such 
matters.  For  some  of  the  volumes  that  she  had 
just  bespoken  the  bookseller  was  to  send  to  foreign 
countries;  the  others  were  to  be  despatched  that 
evening  to  the  address  which  the  young  girl  had 
left.  As  Benvolio  stood  there  the  bibliophilist  gath 
ered  these  latter  together,  and  while  he  was  so  en 
gaged  he  uttered  a  little  cry  of  distress :  one  of  the 
volumes  of  a  set  was  missing.  The  book  was  a  rare 
one,  and  it  would  be  hard  to  repair  the  loss.  Ben 
volio  on  the  instant  had  an  inspiration ;  he  demanded 
leave  of  his  friend  to  act  as  messenger:  he  would 
carry  the  books,  as  if  he  came  from  the  shop,  and 
he  would  explain  the  absence  of  the  lost  volume,  and 


Benvolio  233 


the  bookseller's  views  about  replacing  it,  far  better 
than  one  of  the  hirelings.  He  asked  leave,  I  say, 
but  he  did  not  wait  till  it  was  given :  he  snatched  up 
the  pile  of  books  and  strode  triumphantly  away! 


IV 


As  there  was  no  name  on  the  parcel,  Benvolio,  on 
reaching  the  old  gray  house,  over  the  wall  of  whose 
court  an  adventurous  creeper  stretched  its  long  arm 
into  the  street,  found  himself  wondering  in  what 
terms  he  should  ask  to  have  speech  of  the  person  for 
whom  the  books  were  intended.  At  any  hazard  he 
was  determined  not  to  retreat  until  he  had  caught  a 
glimpse  of  the  interior  and  its  inhabitants ;  for  this 
was  the  same  man,  you  must  remember,  who  had 
scaled  the  moonlit  wall  of  the  Countess's  garden. 
An  old  serving  woman  in  a  quaint  cap  answered  his 
summons,  and  stood  blinking  out  at  the  fading  day 
light  from  a  little  wrinkled  white  face,  as  if  she 
had  never  been  compelled  to  take  so  direct  a  look  at 
it  before.  He  informed  her  that  he  had  come  from 
the  bookseller's,  and  that  he  had  been  charged  with 
a  personal  message  for  the  venerable  gentleman  who 
had  bespoken  the  parcel.  Might  he  crave  license  to 
speak  with  him  ?  This  obsequious  phrase  was  an  im- 

234 


Benvolio  235 


provisation  of  the  moment:  of  course  it  was  hit  or 
miss.  But  Benvolio  had  an  indefinable  conviction 
that  it  was  rightly  aimed;  the  only  thing  that  sur 
prised  him  was  the  quiet  complaisance  of  the  old 
woman. 

"If  it's  on  a  bookish  errand  you  come,  sir,"  she 
said  with  a  little  wheezy  sigh,  "I  suppose  I  only  do 
my  duty  in  admitting  you !" 

She  led  him  into  the  house,  through  various  dusky 
chambers,  and  at  last  ushered  him  into  an  apartment 
of  which  the  side  opposite  to  the  door  was  occupied 
by  a  broad,  low  casement.  Through  its  small  old 
panes  there  came  a  green  dim  light — the  light  of 
the  low  western  sun  shining  through  the  wet  trees 
of  the  famous  garden.  Everything  else  was  ancient 
and  brown;  the  walls  were  covered  with  tiers  upon 
tiers  of  books.  Near  the  window,  in  the  still  twi 
light,  sat  two  persons,  one  of  whom  rose  as  Ben 
volio  came  in.  This  was  the  young  girl  of  the  gar 
den — the  young  girl  of  an  hour  since  at  the  book 
seller's.  The  other  was  an  old  man  who  turned  his 
head,  but  otherwise  sat  quite  still. 

Both  his  movements  and  his  stillness  immediately 
announced  to  Benvolio's  fine  sense  that  he  was  blind. 
In  his  quality  of  poet  Benvolio  was  inventive;  a 
brain  that  is  constantly  cudgelled  for  rhymes  is  tol-  • 
erably  alert.  In  a  few  moments,  therefore,  he  had 
given  a  vigorous  push  to  the  wheel  of  fortune.  Va- 


236 Master  Eustace 

rious  things  had  happened.  He  had  made  a  soft, 
respectful  speech,  he  hardly  knew  about  what ;  and 
the  old  man  had  told  him  he  had  a  delectable  voice 
— a  voice  that  seemed  to  belong  rather  to  a  person 
of  education  than  to  a  tradesman's  porter.  Benvolio 
confessed  to  having  picked  up  an  education,  and  the 
old  man  had  thereupon  bidden  the  young  girl  offer 
him  a  seat.  Benvolio  chose  his  seat  where  he  could 
see  her,  as  she  sat  at  the  low-browed  casement.  The 
bookseller  on  the  square  thought  it  likely  Benvolio 
would  come  back  that  evening  and  give  him  an  ac 
count  of  his  errand,  and  before  he  closed  his  shop  he 
looked  up  and  down  the  street,  to  see  whether  the 
young  man  was  approaching.  Benvolio  came,  but 
the  shop  was  closed.  He  didn't  notice  it :  he  walked 
three  times  round  the  great  Place  without  noticing 
it.  He  was  thinking  of  something  else.  He  had 
sat  all  the  evening  with  the  blind  old  scholar  and 
his  daughter,  and  he  was  thinking  intently,  ardently 
of  them.  When  I  say  of  them,  of  course  I  mean  of 
the  daughter. 

A  few  days  afterward  he  got  a  note  from  the 
Countess  saying  it  would  give  her  pleasure  to  re 
ceive  his  visit.  He  immediately  wrote  to  her  that, 
with  a  thousand  regrets,  he  found  himself  urgently 
occupied  in  town  and  must  beg  leave  to  defer  his 
departure  for  a  day  or  two.  The  regrets  were  per 
fectly  sincere,  but  the  plea  was  none  the  less  valid. 


Benvolio  237 


Benvolio  had  become  deeply  interested  in  his  tran 
quil  neighbors,  and,  for  the  moment,  a  certain  way 
the  young  girl  had  of  looking  at  him — fixing  her 
eyes,  first,  with  a  little  vague,  half-absent  smile,  on 
an  imaginary  point  above  his  head,  and  then  slowly 
dropping  them  till  they  met  his  own — was  quite  suf 
ficient  to  make  him  happy.  He  had  called  once  more 
on  her  father,  and  once  more,  and  yet  once  more, 
and  he  had  a  vivid  prevision  that  he  would  often 
call  again.  He  had  been  in  the  garden  and  found  its 
mild  mouldiness  even  more  delightful  on  a  nearer 
view.  He  had  pulled  off  his  very  ill-fitting  mask, 
and  let  his  neighbors  know  that  his  trade  was  not  to 
carry  parcels,  but  to  scribble  verses.  The  old  man 
had  never  heard  of  his  verses ;  he  read  nothing  that 
had  been  published  later  than  the  sixth  century ;  and 
nowadays  he  could  read  only  with  his  daughter's 
eyes.  Benvolio  had  seen  the  little  white  volume  on 
the  table,  and  assured  himself  it  was  his  own;  and 
he  noted  the  fact  that  in  spite  of  its  well-thumbed 
air,  the  young  girl  had  never  given  her  father  a  hint 
of  its  contents,  I  said  just  now  that  several  things 
had  happened  in  the  first  half  hour  of  Benvolio's 
first  visit.  One  of  them  was  that  this  modest  maiden 
fell  most  positively  in  love  with  him.  What  hap 
pened  when  she  learned  that  he  was  the  author  of 
the  little  white  volume  I  hardly  know  how  to  ex 
press  ;  her  innocent  passion,  I  suppose,  passed  from 


238 Master  Eustace 

the  positive  to  the  superlative  degree.  Benvolio  pos 
sessed  an  old  quarto  volume,  bound  in  Russia 
leather,  about  which  there  clung  an  agreeable  pung 
ent  odor.  In  this  old  quarto  he  kept  a  sort  of  diary 
— if  that  can  be  called  a  diary  in  which  a  whole 
year  had  sometimes  been  allowed  to  pass  without 
an  entry.  On  the  other  hand,  there  were  some  in 
terminable  records  of  a  single  day.  Turning  it  over 
you  would  have  chanced,  not  infrequently,  upon  the 
name  of  the  Countess;  and  at  this  time  you  would 
have  observed  on  every  page  some  mention  of  "the 
Professor"  and  of  a  certain  person  named  Scholas- 
tica.  Scholastica,  we  immediately  guess,  was  the 
Professor's  daughter.  Very  likely  this  was  not  her 
own  name,  but  it  was  the  name  by  which  Benvolio 
preferred  to  know  her,  and  we  needn't  be  more  ex 
act  than  he.  By  this  time,  of  course,  he  knew  a  great 
deal  about  her,  and  about  her  venerable  sire.  The 
Professor,  before  the  loss  of  his  eyesight  and  his 
health,  had  been  one  of  the  stateliest  pillars  of  the 
University.  He  was  now  an  old  man ;  he  had  mar 
ried  late  in  life.  When  his  infirmities  came  upon 
him  he  gave  up  his  chair  and  his  classes  and  buried 
himself  in  his  library.  He  made  his  daughter  his 
reader  and  his  secretary,  and  his  prodigious  memory 
assisted  her  clear  young  voice  and  her  steady-mov 
ing  pen.  He  was  held  in  great  honor  in  the  scho 
lastic  world;  learned  men  came  from  afar  to  con- 


Benvolio  239 


suit  the  blind  sage,  and  to  appeal  to  his  wisdom  as 
to  the  ultimate  law.  The  University  settled  a  pen 
sion  upon  him,  and  he  dwelt  in  a  dusky  corner, 
among  the  academic  shades.  The  pension  was  small, 
but  the  old  scholar  and  the  young  girl  lived  with 
conventual  simplicity.  It  so  happened,  however, 
that  he  had  a  brother,  or  rather  a  half  brother,  who 
was  not  a  bookish  man,  save  as  regarded  his  ledger 
and  day-book.  This  personage  had  made  money  in 
trade,  and  had  retired,  wifeless  and  childless,  into 
the  old  gray  house  attached  to  Benvolio's  garden. 
He  had  the  reputation  of  a  skinflint,  a  curmudgeon, 
a  bloodless  old  miser  who  spent  his  days  in  shuf 
fling  about  his  mouldy  old  house,  making  his  pock 
ets  jingle,  and  his  nights  in  lifting  his  money-bags 
out  of  trapdoors,  and  counting  over  his  hoard.  He 
was  nothing  but  a  chilling  shadow,  an  evil  name,  a 
pretext  for  a  curse :  no  one  had  ever  seen  him,  much 
less  crossed  his  threshold.  But  it  seemed  that  he 
had  a  soft  spot  in  his  heart.  He  wrote  one  day  to 
his  brother,  whom  he  had  not  seen  for  years,  that 
the  rumor  had  come  to  him  that  he  was  blind,  infirm, 
and  poor;  that  he  himself  had  a  large  house  with  a 
garden  behind  it,  and  that  if  the  Professor  was  not 
too  proud,  he  was  welcome  to  come  and  lodge  there. 
The  Professor  had  come  in  this  way  a  few  weeks 
before,  and  though  it  would  seem  that  to  a  sightless 
old  ascetic  all  lodgings  might  be  the  same,  he  took 


240 Master  Eustace_ 

a  great  satisfaction  in  this  one.  His  daughter  found 
it  a  paradise,  compared  with  their  two  narrow  cham 
bers  under  the  old  gable  of  the  University,  where, 
amid  the  constant  coming  and  going  of  students,  a 
young  girl  was  compelled  to  lead  a  cloistered  life. 
Benvolio  had  assigned  as  his  motive  for.  intru 
sion,  when  he  had  been  obliged  to  confess  to  his  real 
character,  an  irresistible  desire  to  ask  the  old  man's 
opinion  on  certain  knotty  points  of  philosophy. 
This  was  a  pardonable  fiction,  for  the  event,  at  any 
rate,  justified  it.  Benvolio,  when  he  was  fairly 
launched  in  a  philosophical  discussion,  forgot  that 
there  was  anything  in  the  world  but  metaphysics ;  he 
revelled  in  transcendent  abstractions,  and  became 
unconscious  of  all  concrete  things — even  of  that 
most  brilliant  of  concrete  things,  the  Countess.  He 
longed  to  embark  on  a  voyage  of  discovery  on  the 
great  sea  of  pure  reason.  He  knew  that  from  such 
voyages  the  deep-browed  adventurer  rarely  returns ; 
but  if  he  finds  an  El  Dorado  of  thought,  why  should 
he  regret  the  dusky  world  of  fact?  Benvolio  had 
much  high  discourse  with  the  Professor,  who  was 
a  devout  Neo-Platonist,  and  whose  venerable  wit 
had  spun  to  subtler  tenuity  the  ethereal  speculations 
of  the  Alexandrian  school.  Benvolio  at  this  season 
vowed  that  study  and  science  were  the  only  game  in 
life  worth  the  candle,  and  wondered  how  he  could 
ever  for  an  instant  have  thought  otherwise.  He 


Benvolio  241 


turned  off  a  little  poem  in  the  style  of  Milton's  "Pen- 
seroso,"  which,  if  it  had  not  quite  the  merit  of  that 
famous  effusion,  was  at  least  the  young  man's  own 
happiest  performance.  When  Benvolio  liked  a  thing 
he  liked  it  as  a  whole — it  appealed  to  all  his  senses. 
He  relished  its  accidents,  its  accessories,  its  mate 
rial  envelope.  In  the  satisfaction  he  took  in  his 
visits  to  the  Professor  it  would  have  been  hard  to 
say  where  the  charm  of  philosophy  began  or  ended. 
If  it  began  with  a  glimpse  of  the  old  man's  mild, 
sightless  blue  eyes,  sitting  fixed  beneath  his  shaggy 
white  brows  like  patches  of  pale  winter  sky  under 
a  high-piled  cloud,  it  hardly  ended  before  it  reached 
the  little  black  bow  on  Scholastica's  slipper ;  and  cer 
tainly  it  had  taken  a  comprehensive  sweep  in  the  in 
terval.  There  was  nothing  in  his  friends  that  the 
appreciative  fellow  did  not  feel  an  immense  kindness 
for.  Their  seclusion,  their  stillness,  their  super- 
simple  notions  of  the  world  and  the  world's  ways, 
the  faint,  musty  perfume  of  the  University  which 
hovered  about  them,  their  brown  old  apartment,  im 
penetrable  to  the  rumors  of  the  town — all  these 
things  were  part  of  the  charm.  Then  the  essence 
of  it  perhaps  was  that  in  this  silent,  simple  life  the 
intellectual  key,  if  you  touched  it,  was  so  finely  reso 
nant.  In  the  way  of  thought  there  was  nothing  into 
which  his  friends  were  not  initiated — nothing  they 
could  not  understand.  The  mellow  light  of  their 


242 Master  Eustace     

low-browed  room,  streaked  with  the  moted  rays  that 
slanted  past  the  dusky  bookshelves,  was  the  atmos 
phere  of  culture.  All  this  made  them,  humble  folk 
as  they  were,  not  so  simple  as  they  at  first  appeared. 
They,  too,  in  their  own  fashion,  knew  the  world; 
they  were  not  people  to  be  patronized ;  to  visit  them 
was  not  a  condescension  but  a  privilege. 

In  the  Professor  this  was  not  surprising.  He 
had  passed  fifty  years  in  arduous  study,  and  it  was 
proper  to  his  character  and  his  office  that  he  should 
be  erudite,  impressive,  and  venerable.  But  sweet 
Scholastica  seemed  to  Benvolio  at  first  almost  gro 
tesquely  wise.  She  was  an  anomaly,  a  prodigy,  a 
charming  monstrosity.  Charming,  at  any  rate,  she 
was,  and  as  pretty,  I  must  lose  no  more  time  in  say 
ing,  as  had  seemed  likely  to  Benvolio  at  his  window. 
And  yet,  even  on  a  nearer  view,  her  prettiness  shone 
forth  slowly  and  half-dimly.  It  was  as  if  it  had 
been  covered  with  a  series  of  film-like  veils,  which 
had  to  be  successively  drawn  aside.  And  then  it 
was  such  a  homely,  shrinking,  subtle  prettiness,  that 
Benvolio,  in  the  private  record  I  have  mentioned, 
never  thought  of  calling  it  by  the  arrogant  name  of 
beauty.  He  called  it  by  no  name  at  all ;  he  contented 
himself  with  enjoying  it — with  looking  into  the 
young  girl's  mild  gray  eyes  and  saying  things,  on 
purpose,  that  caused  her  candid  smile  to  deepen  until 
(like  the  broadening  ripple  of  a  lake)  it  reached  a 


Benvolio  243 


certain  dimple  in  her  left  cheek.  This  was  its  maxi 
mum  ;  no  smile  could  do'  more,  and  Benvolio  desired 
nothing  better.  Yet  I  cannot  say  he  was  in  love 
with  the  young  girl ;  he  only  liked  her.  But  he  liked 
her,  no  doubt,  as  a  man  likes  a  thing  but  once  in  his 
life.  As  he  knew  her  better  the  oddity  of  her  learn 
ing  quite  faded  away;  it  seemed  delightfully  natural, 
and  he  only  wondered  why  there  were  not  more 
women  of  the  same  pattern.  Scholastica  had  im 
bibed  the  wine  of  science  instead  of  her  mother's 
milk.  Her  mother  had  died  in  her  infancy,  leaving 
her  cradled  in  an  old  folio,  three-quarters  opened, 
like  a  wide  V.  Her  father  had  been  her  nurse,  her 
playmate,  her  teacher,  her  life-long  companion,  her 
only  friend.  He  taught  her  the  Greek  alphabet  be 
fore  she  knew  her  own,  and  fed  her  with  crumbs 
from  his  own  scholastic  revels.  She  had  taken  sub 
missively  what  was  given  her,  and,  without  know 
ing  it,  she  grew  up  a  learned  maiden. 

Benvolio  perceived  that  she  was  not  in  the  least 
a  woman  of  genius.  The  passion  for  knowledge,  of 
its  own  motion,  would  never  have  carried  her  far. 
But  she  had  a  clear,  tranquil,  natural  mind,  which 
gave  back  an  exact,  definite  image  of  everything  that 
was  presented  to  it;  the  sort  of  intelligence,  Ben 
volio  said,  which  had  been,  as  a  minimum,  every 
one's  portion  in  the  golden  age,  and  would  be  again 
the  golden  mean  in  the  millennium.  And  then  she 


244 Master  Eustace 

was  so  teachable,  so  diligent,  so  indefatigable.  Slen 
der  and  meagre  as  she  was,  and  rather  pale,  too,  with 
being  much  within  doors,  she  was  never  tired,  she 
never  had  a  headache,  she  never  closed  her  book  or 
laid  down  a  pen  with  a  sigh.  For  helping  a  man, 
Benvolio  thought  it  was  an  exquisite  organism. 
What  a  work  he  might  do  on  summer  mornings  and 
winter  nights  with  that  brightly  demure  little  crea 
ture  at  his  side,  transcribing,  recollecting,  sympa 
thizing!  He  wondered  how  much  she  cared  for 
these  things  herself;  whether  a  woman  could  care 
for  them  without  being  dry  and  harsh.  It  was  in  a 
great  measure  for  information  on  this  point  that 
he  used  to  question  her  eyes  with  the  frequency  that 
I  have  mentioned.  But  they  never  gave  him  a  per 
fectly  direct  answer,  and  this  was  why  he  came  and 
came  again.  They  seemed  to  him  to  say,  "If  you 
could  lead  a  student's  life  for  my  sake,  I  could  be  a 
life-long  household  scribe  for  yours."  Was  it  di 
vine  philosophy  that  made  Scholastica  charming,  or 
was  it  she  that  made  philosophy  divine?  I  cannot 
relate  everything  that  came  to  pass  between  these 
young  people,  and  I  must  leave  a  great  deal  to  your 
imagination.  The  summer  waned,  and  when  the 
autumnal  shadow  began  to  gnaw  the  bright  edge  of 
the  days,  the  quiet  couple  in  the  old  gray  house  had 
expanded  to  a  talkative  trio.  For  Benvolio  the  days 
had  passed  very  fast ;  the  trio  had  talked  of  so  many 


Benvolio  245 


things.  He  had  spent  many  an  hour  in  the  garden 
with  the  young  girl,  strolling  in  the  weedy  paths,  or 
resting  on  a  moss-grown  bench.  She  was  a  delight 
ful  listener,  because  while  she  was  perfectly  defer 
ential,  she  was  also  perfectly  attentive.  Benvolio 
had  had  women  fix  very  beautiful  eyes  upon  him, 
and  watch  with  an  air  of  ecstasy  the  movement  of 
his  lips,  and  yet  had  found  them  three  minutes  after 
ward  quite  incapable  of  saying  what  he  was  talking 
about.  Scholastica  followed  him  and,  without  ef 
fort  or  exultation,  understood  him. 


You  will  say  that  my  description  of  Benvolio  has 
done  him  injustice,  and  that,  far  from  being  the 
sentimental  weathercock  I  have  depicted,  he  is  prov 
ing  himself  a  model  of  constancy.  But  mark  the 
sequel.  It  was  at  this  moment,  precisely,  that,  one 
morning,  having  gone  to  bed  the  night  before  sing 
ing  paeans  to  divine  philosophy,  he  woke  up  with  a 
headache,  and  in  the  worst  of  humors  with  it.  He 
remembered  Scholastica  telling  him  that  she  never 
had  headaches,  and  the  memory  quite  annoyed  him. 
He  was  in  the  mood  for  declaring  her  a  neat  little 
mechanical  toy,  wound  up  to  turn  pages  and  write 
a  pretty  hand,  but  with  neither  a  head  nor  a  heart 
that  was  capable  of  human  ailments.  He  fell  asleep 
again,  and  in  one  of  those  brief  but  vivid  dreams 
that  sometimes  occur  in  the  morning  hours,  he  had 
a  brilliant  vision  of  the  Countess.  She  was  human 
beyond  a  doubt,  and  duly  familiar  with  headaches 
and  heartaches.  He  felt  an  irresistible  desire  to  see 

246 


Benvolio  247 


her  and  to  tell  her  that  he  adored  her.  This  satis 
faction  was  not  unattainable,  and  before  the  day 
was  over  he  was  well  on  his  way  toward  enjoying 
it.  He  found  the  Countess  holding  her  usual  court, 
and  making  a  merry  world  of  it.  He  had  meant 
to  stay  with  her  a  week;  he  stayed  two  months — 
the  most  entertaining  months  of  his  life.  I  cannot 
pretend,  of  course,  to  enumerate  the  diversions  of 
this  fortunate  circle,  nor  to  say  just  how  Benvolio 
spent  every  hour  of  his  time.  But  if  the  summer 
had  passed  quickly  with  him,  the  autumn  moved 
with  a  tread  as  light.  He  thought  once  in  a  while 
of  Scholastica  and  her  father — once  in  a  while,  I 
say,  when  present  occupations  suffered  his  thoughts 
to  wander.  This  was  not  often,  for  the  Countess 
had  always,  as  the  phrase  is,  a  dozen  irons  on  the 
fire.  You  see  the  negative,  with  Benvolio,  always 
implied  as  distinct  a  positive,  and  his  excuse  for 
being  inconstant  on  one  side  was  that  he  was  at  that 
time  very  constant  on  another.  He  developed  at  this 
period  a  talent  as  yet  untried  and  unsuspected :  he 
proved  himself  capable  of  writing  brilliant  dramatic 
poetry.  The  long  autumn  evenings,  in  a  great  coun 
try  house,  offered  the  ideal  setting  for  the  much- 
abused  pastime  known  as  private  theatricals.  The 
Countess  had  a  theatre,  and  abundant  material  for  a 
troupe  of  amateur  players ;  all  that  was  lacking  was 
a  play  exactly  adapted  to  her  resources.  She  pro- 


248 Master  Eustace 

posed  to  Benvolio  to  write  one;  the  idea  took  his 
fancy;  he  shut  himself  up  in  the  library,  and  in  a 
week  produced  a  masterpiece.  He  had  found  the 
subject  one  day  when  he  was  pulling  over  the  Count 
ess's  books  in  an  old  MS.  chronicle  written  by  the 
chaplain  of  one  of  her  late  husband's  ancestors.  It 
was  the  germ  of  an  admirable  drama,  and  Benvolio 
enjoyed  vastly  the  work  of  bringing  it  to  maturity. 
All  his  genius,  all  his  imagination  went  into  it.  This 
was  their  proper  mission,  he  cried  to  himself — the 
study  of  warm  human  passions,  the  painting  of 
rich  dramatic  pictures,  not  the  bald  excogitation  of 
cold  metaphysical  formulas.  His  play  was  acted 
with  brilliant  success,  the  Countess  herself  repre 
senting  the  heroine.  Benvolio  had  never  seen  her 
act,  and  had  no  idea  she  possessed  the  talent;  but 
she  was  inimitable,  she  was  a  natural  artist.  What 
gives  charm  to  life,  Benvolio  hereupon  said  to  him 
self,  is  the  element  of  the  unexpected,  the  unfore 
seen  ;  and  this  one  finds  only  in  women  of  the  Count 
ess's  type.  And  I  should  do  wrong  to  imply  that  he 
here  made  an  invidious  comparison,  because  he  did 
not  even  think  of  Scholastica.  His  play  was  re 
peated  several  times,  and  people  were  invited  to  see 
it  from  all  the  country  round.  There  was  a  great 
bivouac  of  servants  in  the  castle  court;  in  the  cold 
November  nights  a  bonfire  was  lighted  to  keep  the 
servants  warm.  It  was  a  great  triumph  for  Ben- 


Benvolio  249 


volio,  and  he  frankly  enjoyed  it.  He  knew  he  en 
joyed  it,  and  how  great  a  triumph  it  was,  and  he 
felt  every  disposition  to  drain  the  cup  to  the  last 
drop.  He  relished  his  own  elation,  and  found  him 
self  excellent  company.  He  began  immediately  an 
other  drama — a  comedy  this  time — and  he  was 
greatly  interested  to  observe  that  when  his  work 
was  fairly  on  the  stocks  he  found  himself  regarding 
all  the  people  about  him  as  types  and  available  fig 
ures.  Everything  paid  tribute  to  his  work;  every 
thing  presented  itself  as  possible  material.  Life, 
really,  on  these  terms  was  becoming  very  interest 
ing,  and  for  several  nights  the  laurels  of  Moliere 
kept  Benvolio  awake. 

Delightful  as  this  was,  however,  it  could  not  last 
forever.  At  the  beginning  of  the  winter  the  Count 
ess  returned  to  town,  and  Benvolio  came  back  with 
her,  his  unfinished  comedy  in  his  pocket.  During 
much  of  the  journey  he  was  silent  and  abstracted, 
and  the  Countess  supposed  he  was  thinking  of  how 
he  should  make  the  most  of  that  capital  situation  in 
his  third  act.  The  Countess's  perspicuity  was  just 
sufficient  to  carry  her  so  far — to  lead  her,  in  other 
words,  into  plausible  wrong  conjectures.  Benvolio 
was  really  wondering  what  in  the  name  of  mystery 
had  suddenly  become  of  his  inspiration,  and  why  his 
comedy  had  turned  stale  on  his  hands  as  the  cracking 
of  the  post-boy's  whip.  He  looked  out  at  the  scrubby 


250 Master  Eustace 

fields,  the  rusty  woods,  the  sullen  sky,  and  asked 
himself  whether  that  was  the  world  to  which  it  had 
been  but  yesterday  his  high  ambition  to  hold  up  the 
mirror.  The  Countess's  dame  de  compagnie  sat  op 
posite  to  him  in  the  carriage.  Yesterday  he  thought 
her,  with  her  pale,  discreet  face,  and  her  eager  move 
ments  that  pretended  to  be  indifferent,  a  finished 
specimen  of  an  entertaining  genus.  To-day  he  could 
only  say  that  if  there  was  a  whole  genus,  it  was  a 
thousand  pities,  for  the  poor  lady  struck  him  as  mis 
erably  false  and  servile.  The  real  seemed  hideous; 
he  felt  homesick  for  his  dear  familiar  rooms  be 
tween  the  garden  and  the  square,  and  he  longed  to 
get  into  them  and  bolt  his  door  and  bury  himself  in 
his  old  arm-chair  and  cultivate  idealism  for  ever 
more.  The  first  thing  he  actually  did  on  getting  into 
them  was  to  go  to  the  window  and  look  out  into  the 
garden.  It  had  greatly  changed  in  his  absence,  and 
the  old  maimed  statues,  which  all  summer  had  been 
comfortably  muffled  in  verdure,  were  now,  by  an 
odd  contradiction  of  propriety,  standing  white  and 
naked  in  the  cold.  I  don't  exactly  know  how  soon 
it  was  that  Benvolio  went  back  to  see  his  neighbors. 
It  was  after  no  great  interval,  and  yet  it  was  not 
immediately.  He  had  a  bad  conscience,  and  he  was 
wondering  what  he  should  say  to  them.  It  seemed 
to  him  now  (though  he  had  not  thought  of  it  sooner) 
that  they  might  accuse  him  of  neglecting  them.  He 


Benvolio  251 


had  cultivated  their  friendship,  he  had  professed  the 
highest  esteem  for  them,  and  then  he  had  turned 
his  back  on  them  without  farewell,  and  without  a 
word  of  explanation.  He  had  not  written  to  them ; 
in  truth,  during  his  sojourn  with  the  Countess,  it 
would  not  have  been  hard  for  him  to  persuade  him 
self  that  they  were  people  he  had  only  dreamed 
about,  or  read  about,  at  most,  in  some  old  volume 
of  memoirs.  People  of  their  value,  he  could  now 
imagine  them  saying,  were  not  to  be  taken  up  and 
dropped  in  that  summary  fashion;  and  if  friendship 
was  not  to  be  friendship  as  they  themselves  under 
stood  it,  it  was  better  that  he  should  forget  them  at 
once,  for  all  time.  It  is  perhaps  too  much  to  affirm 
that  he  could  imagine  them  saying  all  this ;  they  were 
too  mild  and  civil,  too  unused  to  acting  in  self-de 
fence.  But  they  might  easily  receive  him  in  a  way 
that  would  irresistibly  imply  it,  for  a  man  of  any 
delicacy.  He  felt  profaned,  dishonored,  almost  con 
taminated;  so  that  perhaps  when  he  did  at  last  re 
turn  to  his  friends,  it  was  because  that  was  the  sim 
plest  way  to  be  purified.  How  did  they  receive  him? 
I  told  you  a  good  way  back  that  Scholastica  was  in 
love  with  him,  and  you  may  arrange  the  scene  in 
your  fancy  in  any  manner  that  best  accords  with  this 
circumstance.  Her  forgiveness,  of  course,  when 
once  that  chord  was  touched,  was  proportionate  to 
her  resentment.  But  Benvolio  took  refuge  both 


252  Master  Eustace 

from  his  own  compunctions  and  from  the  young 
girl's  reproaches,  in  whatever  form  these  were  con 
veyed,  in  making  a  full  confession  of  what  he  was 
pleased  to  call  his  frivolity.  As  he  walked  through 
the  naked  garden  with  Scholastica,  kicking  the  wrin 
kled  leaves,  he  told  her  the  whole  story  of  his  so 
journ  with  the  Countess.  The  young  girl  listened 
with  bright  intentness,  as  she  would  have  listened  to 
some  thrilling  chapter  of  romance;  but  she  neither 
sighed,  nor  looked  wistful,  nor  seemed  to  envy  the 
Countess,  or  to  repine  at  her  own  dull  fashion  of 
life.  It  was  all  too  remote  for  comparison;  it  was 
not,  for  Scholistica,  among  the  things  that  might 
have  been.  Benvolio  talked  to  her  about  the  Count 
ess,  without  reserve.  If  she  liked  it,  he  found  on 
his  side  that  it  eased  his  mind ;  and  as  he  said  noth 
ing  that  the  Countess  would  not  have  been  flattered 
by,  there  was  no  harm  done.  Although,  however, 
Benvolio  uttered  nothing  but  praise  of  this  distin 
guished  lady,  he  was  very  frank  in  saying  that  she 
and  her  way  of  life  always  left  him  at  the  end  in  a 
worse  humor  than  when  they  found  him.  They 
were  very  well  in  their  way,  he  said,  but  their  way 
was  not  his  way,  or  could  not  be  in  the  long  run; 
for  him,  he  was  convinced,  the  only  happiness  was 
in  seclusion,  meditation,  concentration.  Scholastica 
answered  that  it  gave  her  extreme  pleasure  to  hear 
this,  for  it  was  her  father's  belief  that  Benvolio 


Benvolio  253 


had  a  great  aptitude  for  philosophical  research,  and 
that  it  was  a  sacred  duty  with  him  to  devote  his  days 
and  his  nights  to  it. 

"And  what  is  your  own  belief?"  Benvolio  asked, 
remembering  that  the  young  girl  knew  several  of 
his  poems  by  heart. 

Her  answer  was  very  simple :  "I  believe  you're  a 
poet." 

"And  a  poet  oughtn't  to  run  the  risk  of  turning 
pedant?" 

"No,"  she  answered;  "a  poet  ought  to  run  all 
risks — even  that  one  which  for  a  poet,  perhaps,  is 
the  most  cruel.  But  he  ought  to  evade  them  all!" 

Benvolio  took  great  satisfaction  in  hearing  that 
the  Professor  deemed  that  he  had  in  him  the  making 
of  a  philosopher,  and  it  gave  an  impetus  to  the  zeal 
with  which  he  returned  to  work 


VI 


OF  COURSE  even  the  most  zealous  student  cannot 
work  always,  and  often,  after  a  very  philosophical 
day,  Benvolio  spent  with  the  Countess  a  very  senti 
mental  morning.  It  is  my  duty  as  a  veracious  his 
torian  not  to  conceal  the  fact  that  he  discoursed  to 
the  Countess  about  Scholastica.  He  gave  such  a 
puzzling  description  of  her  that  the  Countess  de 
clared  that  she  must  be  a  delightfully  quaint  crea 
ture,  and  that  it  would  be  vastly  amusing  to  know 
her.  She  hardly  supposed  Benvolio  was  in  love  with 
this  little  book-worm  in  petticoats,  but  to  make  sure 
— if  that  might  be  called  making  sure — she  deliber 
ately  asked  him.  He  said  No;  he  hardly  saw  how 
he  could  be,  since  he  was  in  love  with  the  Countess 
herself !  For  a  while  this  answer  satisfied  her,  but 
as  the  winter  went  by  she  began  to  wonder  whether 
there  was  not  such  a  thing  as  a  man  being  in  love 
with  two  women  at  once.  During  many  months 
that  followed  Benvolio  led  a  kind  of  double  life. 

254 


Benvolio  V55 


Sometimes  it  charmed  him  and  gave  him  an  inspir 
ing  sense  of  personal  power.  He  haunted  the  domi 
cile  of  his  gentle  neighbors,  and  drank  deep  of 
philosophy,  history,  and  all  the  garnered  wisdom  of 
the  ages;  and  he  made  appearances  as  frequent  in 
the  Countess's  drawing-room,  where  he  played  his 
part  with  magnificent  zest  and  ardor.  It  was  a  life 
of  alternation,  and  variation,  and  contrast,  and  it 
really  demanded  a  vigorous  and  elastic  tempera 
ment.  Sometimes  his  own  seemed  to  him  quite  in 
adequate  to  the  occasion — he  felt  fevered,  bewil 
dered,  exhausted.  But  when  it  came  to  the  point, 
it  was  impossible  to  give  up  either  his  worldly  hab 
its  or  his  studious  aspirations.  Benvolio  raged  in 
wardly  at  the  cruel  limitations  of  »the  human  mind, 
and  declared  it  was  a  great  outrage  that  a  man 
should  not  be  personally  able  to  do  everything  he 
could  imagine  doing.  I  hardly  know  how  she  con 
trived  it,  but  the  Countess  was  at  this  time  a  more 
engaging  woman  than  she  had  ever  been.  Her 
beauty  acquired  an  ampler  and  richer  cast,  and  she 
had  a  manner  of  looking  at  you,  as  she  slowly  turned 
away,  which  had  lighted  a  hopeless  flame  in  many 
a  youthful  breast.  Benvolio  one  day  felt  in  the 
mood  for  finishing  his  comedy,  and  the  Countess 
and  her  friends  acted  it.  Its  success  was  no  less 
brilliant  than  that  of  its  predecessor,  and  the  mana 
ger  of  the  theatre  immediately  demanded  the  privi- 


256 Master  Eustace  

lege  of  producing  it.  You  will  hardly  believe  me, 
however,  when  I  tell  you  that  on  the  night  that  his 
comedy  was  introduced  to  the  public  its  eccentric 
author  sat  discussing  the  absolute  and  the  relative 
with  the  Professor  and  his  daughter.  Benvolio  had 
all  winter  been  observing  that  Scholastica  never 
looked  so  pretty  as  when  she  sat,  of  a  winter's  night, 
plying  a  quiet  needle  in  the  mellow  circle  of  a  cer 
tain  antique  brass  lamp.  On  the  night  in  question 
he  happened  to  fall  a-thinking  of  this  picture,  and 
he  tramped  out  across  the  snow  for  the  express  pur 
pose  of  looking  at  it.  It  was  sweeter  even  than  his 
memory  promised,  and  it  drew  every  thought  of  his 
theatrical  honors  from  his  head.  Scholastica  gave 
him  some  tea,  and  her  tea,  for  mysterious  reasons, 
was  delicious ;  better,  strange  to  say,  than  that  of 
the  Countess,  who,  however,  it  must  be  added,  re 
covered  her  ground  in  coffee.  The  Professor's 
miserly  brother  owned  a  ship  which  made  voyages 
to  China,  and  brought  him  goodly  chests  of  the  in 
comparable  plant.  He  sold  the  cargo  for  great 
sums,  but  he  kept  a  chest  for  himself.  It  was  al 
ways  the  best  one,  and  he  had  at  this  time  carefully 
measured  a  part  of  his  annual  quantum  into  a  piece 
of  flossy  tissue  paper,  made  it  into  a  little  parcel, 
and  presented  it  to  Scholastica.  This  is  the  secret 
history  of  Benvolio's  fragrant  cups.  While  he  was 
drinking  them  on  the  night  I  speak  of — I  am 


Benvolio  257 


ashamed  to  say  how  many  he  drank — his  name,  at 
the  theatre,  was  being  tossed  across  the  footlights  to 
a  brilliant,  clamorous  multitude,  who  hailed  him  as 
the  redeemer  of  the  national  stage.  But  I  am  not 
sure  that  he  even  told  his  friends  that  his  play 
was  being  acted.  Indeed,  this  was  hardly  possible, 
for  I  meant  to  say  just  now  that  he  had  forgot 
ten  it. 

It  is  very  certain,  however,  that  he  enjoyed  the 
criticisms  the  next  day  in  the  newspapers.  Radiant 
and  jubilant,  he  went  to  see  the  Countess.  He  found 
her  looking  terribly  dark.  She  had  been  at  the 
theatre,  prepared  to  revel  in  his  triumph — to  place 
on  his  head  with  her  own  hand,  as  it  were,  the  laurel 
awarded  by  the  public ;  and  his  absence  had  seemed 
to  her  a  sort  of  personal  slight.  Yet  his  triumph 
had  nevertheless  given  her  an  exceeding  pleasure, 
for  it  had  been  the  seal  of  her  secret  hopes  of  him. 
Decidedly  he  was  to  be  a  great  man,  and  this  was 
not  the  moment  for  letting  him  go!  At  the  same 
time  there  was  something  impressive  in  this  extraor 
dinary  lapse  in  his  eagerness — in  his  finding  it  so 
easy  to  forget  his  honors.  It  was  only  an  intellec 
tual  Croesus,  the  Countess  said  to  herself,  who  could 
afford  to  keep  so  loose  an  account.  But  she  in 
sisted  on  knowing  where  he  had  been,  and  he  told 
her  he  had  been  discussing  philosophy  and  tea  with 
the  Professor. 


258 Master  Eustace 

"And  was  not  the  daughter  there?"  the  Countess 
demanded. 

"Most  sensibly !"  he  cried.  And  then  he  added  in! 
a  moment — "I  don't  know  whether  I  ever  told 
you,  but  she's  almost  as  pretty  as  you." 

The  Countess  resented  the  compliment  to  Scholas- 
tica  much  more  than  she  enjoyed  the  compliment  to 
herself.  She  felt  an  extreme  curiosity  to  see  this 
inky-fingered  little  nobody,  who  was  spoken  of  thus 
freely  in  the  same  breath  with  herself;  and  as  she 
seldom  failed,  sooner  or  later,  to  compass  her  de 
sires,  she  succeeded  at  last  in  catching  a  glimpse  of 
her  innocent  rival.  To  do  so  she  was  obliged  to  set 
a  great  deal  of  machinery  in  motion.  She  made 
Benvolio  give  a  lunch,  in  his  rooms,  to  some  ladies 
who  professed  a  desire  to  see  his  works  of  art,  and 
of  whom  she  constituted  herself  the  chaperon.  She 
took  care  that  he  threw  open  the  room  thai  looked 
into  the  garden,  and  here,  at  the  window,  she  spent 
much  of  her  time.  There  was  but  a  chance  that 
Scholastica  would  come  forth  into  the  garden,  but  it 
was  a  chance  worth  staking  something  upon.  The 
Countess  gave  to  it  time  and  temper,  and  she  was 
finally  rewarded.  Scholastica  came  out.  The  poor 
girl  strolled  about  for  half  an  hour,  in  profound  un 
consciousness  that  the  Countess's  fine  eyes  were  de 
vouring  her.  The  impression  she  made  was  singu 
lar.  The  Countess  found  her  both  pretty  and  ugly : 


Benvolio  259 


she  did  not  admire  her  herself,  but  she  understood 
that  Benvolio  might.  For  herself  personally  she  de 
tested  her,  and  when  Scholastica  went  in  and  she 
turned  away  from  the  window,  her  first  movement 
was  to  pass  before  a  mirror,  which  showed  her  some 
thing  that,  impartially  considered,  seemed  to  her  a 
thousand  times  more  beautiful.  The  Countess  made 
no  comments,  and  took  good  care  Benvolio  did  not 
suspect  the  trick  she  had  played  him.  There  was 
something  more  she  promised  herself  to  do,  and  she 
impatiently  awaited  her  opportunity. 

In  the  middle  of  the  winter  she  announced  to  him 
that  she  was  going  to  spend  ten  days  in  the  coun 
try  :  she  had  received  the  most  attractive  accounts  of 
the  state  of  things  on  her  estate.  There  had  been 
great  snow-falls,  and  the  sleighing  was  magnificent ; 
the  lakes  and  streams  were  solidly  frozen,  there  was 
an  unclouded  moon,  and  the  resident  gentry  were 
skating,  half  the  night,  by  torch-light.  The  Count 
ess  was  passionately  fond  both  of  sleighing  and  skat 
ing,  and  she  found  this  picture  irresistible.  And 
then  she  was  charitable,  and  observed  that  it  would 
be  a  kindness  to  the  poor  resident  gentry,  whose 
usual  pleasures  were  of  a  frugal  sort,  to  throw  open 
her  house  and  give  a  ball  or  two,  with  the  village  fid 
dlers.  Perhaps  even  they  might  organize  a  bear- 
hunt — an  entertainment  at  which,  if  properly  con 
ducted,  a  lady  might  be  present  as  spectator.  The 


260 Master  Eustace 

Countess  told  Benvolio  all  this  one  day  as  he  sat 
with  her  in  her  boudoir,  in  the  fire-light,  during  the 
hour  that  precedes  dinner.  She  had  said  more  than 
once  that  he  must  decamp — that  she  must  go  and 
dress  for  dinner;  but  neither  of  them  had  moved. 
She  did  not  invite  him  to  go  with  her  to  the  country ; 
she  only  watched  him  as  he  sat  gazing  with  a  frown 
at  the  firelight — the  crackling  light  of  the  great  logs 
which  had  been  cut  in  the  Countess's  bear-haunted 
forests.  At  last  she  rose  impatiently,  and  fairly 
turned  him  out.  After  he  had  gone  she  stood  for  a 
moment  looking  at  the  fire  with  the  tip  of  her  foot 
on  the  fender.  She  had  not  to  wait  long;  he  came 
back  within  the  minute — came  back  and  begged  her 
leave  to  go  with  her  to  the  country — to  skate  with 
her  in  the  crystal  moonlight  and  dance  with  her 
to  the  sound  of  the  village  fiddles.  It  hardly  matters 
in  what  terms  his  petition  was  granted :  the  notable 
point  is  that  he  made  it.  He  was  her  only  compan 
ion,  and  when  they  were  established  in  the  castle  the 
hospitality  extended  to  the  resident  gentry  was  less 
abundant  than  had  been  promised.  Benvolio,  how 
ever,  did  not  complain  of  the  absence  of  it,  because, 
for  the  week  or  so,  he  was  passionately  in  love  with 
his  hostess.  They  took  long  sleigh-rides  and  drank 
deep  of  the  poetry  of  winter.  The  blue  shadows  on 
the  snow,  the  cold  amber  lights  in  the  west,  the  leaf 
less  twigs  against  the  snow-charged  sky,  all  gave 


Benvolio  261 


them  extraordinary  pleasure.  The  nights  were  even 
better,  when  the  great  silver  stars,  before  the  moon- 
rise,  glittered  on  the  polished  ice,  and  the  young 
Countess  and  her  lover,  firmly  joining  hands, 
launched  themselves  into  motion  and  into  the  dark 
ness  and  went  skimming  for  miles  with  their  winged 
steps.  On  their  return,  before  the  great  chimney- 
place  in  the  old  library,  they  lingered  a  while  and 
drank  little  cups  of  wine  heated  with  spices.  It  was 
perhaps  here,  cup  in  hand — this  point  is  uncertain — 
that  Benvolio  broke  through  the  last  bond  of  his  re 
serve,  and  told  the  Countess  that  he  loved  her,  in  a 
manner  that  quite  satisfied  her.  To  be  his  in  all 
solemnity,  his  only  and  his  forever — this  he  explic 
itly,  passionately,  imperiously  demanded  of  her. 
After  this  she  gave  her  ball  to  her  country  neigh 
bors,  and  Benvolio  danced,  to  a  boisterous,  swinging 
measure,  with  a  dozen  ruddy  beauties  dressed  in  the 
fashions  of  the  year  before  last.  The  Countess 
danced  with  the  lusty  male  counterparts  of  these 
damsels,  but  she  found  plenty  of  chances  to  watch 
Benvolio.  Toward  the  end  of  the  evening  she  saw 
him  looking  grave  and  bored,  with  very  much  such 
a  frown  in  his  forehead  as  when  he  had  sat  staring 
at  the  fire  that  last  day  in  her  boudoir.  She  said  to 
herself  for  the  hundredth  time  that  he  was  the  odd 
est  of  mortals. 

On  their  return  to  the  city  she  had  frequent  oc- 


262 Master  Eustace 

casion  to  say  it  again.  He  looked  at  moments  as  if 
he  had  repented  of  his  bargain — as  if  it  did  not  at  all 
suit  him  that  his  being  the  Countess's  only  lover 
should  involve  her  being  his  only  mistress.  She 
deemed  now  that  she  had  acquired  the  right  to  make 
him  give  an  account  of  his  time,  and  he  did  not  con 
ceal  the  fact  that  the  first  thing  he  had  done  after 
his  return  was  to  go  to  see  his  eccentric  neighbors. 
She  treated  him  hereupon  to  a  passionate  outburst 
of  jealousy ;  called  Scholastica  a  dozen  harsh  names 
— a  dingy  little  Quakeress,  a  little  underhand,  hypo 
critical  Puritan ;  demanded  he  should  promise  never 
to  speak  to  her  again,  and  summoned  him  to  make  a 
choice  once  for  all.  Would  he  belong  to  her,  or  to 
that  odious  little  blue-stocking?  It  must  be  one 
thing  or  the  other ;  he  must  take  her  or  leave  her ;  it 
was  impossible  she  should  have  a  lover  who  could  be 
so  little  depended  upon.  The  Countess  did  not  say 
this  made  her  unhappy,  but  she  repeated  a  dozen 
times  that  it  made  her  ridiculous.  Benvolio  turned 
very  pale ;  she  had  never  seen  him  so  before ;  a  great 
struggle  was  evidently  taking  place  within  him.  A 
terrible  scene  was  the  consequence.  He  broke  out 
into  reproaches  and  imprecations;  he  accused  the 
Countess  of  being  his  bad  angel,  of  making  him  neg 
lect  his  best  faculties,  mutilate  his  genius,  squander 
his  life ;  and  yet  he  confessed  that  he  was  committed 
to  her;  that  she  fascinated  him  beyond  resistance, 


Eenvolio  263 


and  that,  at  any  sacrifice,  he  must  still  be  her  slave. 
This  confession  gave  the  Countess  uncommon  satis 
faction,  and  made  up  in  a  measure  for  the  unflatter 
ing  remarks  that  accompanied  it.  She  on  her  side 
confessed — what  she  had  always  been  too  proud  to 
acknowledge  hitherto — that  she  cared  vastly  for 
him,  and  that  she  had  waited  for  long  months  for 
him  to  say  something  of  this  kind.  They  parted  on 
terms  which  it  is  hard  to  define — full  of  mutual  re 
sentment  and  devotion,  at  once  adoring  and  hating 
each  other.  All  this  was  deep  and  stirring  emotion, 
and  Benvolio,  as  an  artist,  always  in  one  way  or  an 
other  found  his  profit  in  emotion,  even  when  it  lac 
erated  or  suffocated  him.  There  was,  moreover,  a 
sort  of  elation  in  having  burnt  his  ship  behind  him, 
and  he  vowed  to  seek  his  fortune,  in  the  tumult  of  the 
life  and  action.  He  did  no  work ;  his  power  of  work, 
for  the  time  at  least,  was  paralyzed.  Sometimes  this 
frightened  him ;  it  seemed  as  if  his  genius  were  dead, 
his  career  cut  short;  at  other  moments  his  faith 
soared  supreme;  he  heard,  in  broken  murmurs,  the 
voice  of  the  muse,  and  said  to  himself  that  he  was 
only  resting,  waiting,  storing  up  knowledge.  Be 
fore  long  he  felt  tolerably  tranquil  again ;  ideas  be 
gan  to  come  to  him,  and  the  world  to  seem  entertain 
ing.  He  demanded  of  the  Countess  that,  without 
further  delay,  their  union  should  be  solemnized. 
But  the  Countess,  at  that  interview  I  have  just  re- 


264 Master  Eustace 

lated,  had  in  spite  of  her  high  spirit  received  a  great 
fright.  Benvolio,  stalking  up  and  down  with 
clinched  hands  and  angry  eyes,  had  seemed  to  her  a 
terrible  man  to  marry;  and  though  she  was  con 
scious  of  a  strong  will  of  her  own,  as  well  as  of 
robust  nerves,  she  had  shuddered  at  the  thought  that 
such  scenes  might  recur.  She  had  hitherto  seen  lit 
tle  but  the  mild  and  caressing,  or  at  most  the  joyous 
and  fantastic  side  of  her  friend's  disposition ;  but  it 
now  appeared  that  there  was  another  side  to  be  taken 
into  account,  and  that  if  Benvolio  had  talked  of  sac 
rifices,  these  were  not  all  to  be  made  by  him.  They 
say  the  world  likes  its  master — that  a  horse  of  high 
spirit  likes  being  well  ridden.  This  may  be  true  in 
the  long  run;  but  the  Countess,  who  was  essentially 
a  woman  of  the  world,  was  not  yet  prepared  to  sur 
render  her  own  luxurious  liberty  in  tribute.  She 
admired  Benvolio  the  more  now  that  she  was  afraid 
of  him,  but  at  the  same  time  she  liked  him  a  trifle 
less.  She  answered  that  marriage  was  a  very  seri 
ous  matter ;  that  they  had  lately  had  a  taste  of  each 
other's  tempers;  that  they  had  better  wait  a  while 
longer ;  that  she  had  made  up  her  mind  to  travel  for 
a  year,  and  that  she  strongly  recommended  him  to 
come  with  her,  for  travelling  was  notoriously  an 
excellent  test  of  friendship. 


VII 


SHE  went  to  Italy,  and  Benvolio  went  with  her; 
brt  before  he  went  he  paid  a  visit  to  his  other  mis 
tress.  He  flattered  himself  that  he  had  burned  his 
ships  behind  him,  but  the  fire  was  still  visibly  smoul 
dering.  It  is  true,  nevertheless,  that  he  passed  a 
very  strange  half -hour  with  Scholastica  and  her 
father.  The  young  girl,  had  greatly  changed;  she 
barely  greeted  him;  she  looked  at  him  coldly.  He 
had  no  idea  her  face  could  wear  that  look ;  it  vexed 
him  to  find  it  there.  He  had  not  been  to  see  her  in 
many  weeks,  and  he  now  came  to  tell  her  that  he  was 
going  away  for  a  year :  it  is  true  these  were  not  con 
ciliatory  facts.  But  she  had  taught  him  to  think 
that  she  possessed  in  perfection  the  art  of  trustful 
resignation,  of  unprotesting,  cheerful  patience — vir 
tues  that  sat  so  gracefully  on  her  bended  brow  that 
the  thought  of  their  being  at  any  rate  supremely  be 
coming  took  the  edge  from  his  remorse  at  making 
them  necessary.  But  now  Scholastica  looked  older, 

265 


266 Master  Eustace 

as  well  as  sadder,  and  decidedly  not  so  pretty.  Her 
figure  was  meagre,  her  movements  angular,  her  com 
plexion,  even,  not  so  pure  as  he  had  fancied.  After 
the  first  minute  he  avoided  her  eye ;  it  made  her  un 
comfortable.  Her  voice  she  scarcely  allowed  him  to 
hear.  The  Professor,  as  usual,  was  serene  and 
frigid,  impartial  and  transcendental.  There  was  a 
chill  in  the  air,  a  shadow  between  them.  Benvolio 
went  so  far  as  to  wonder  that  he  had  ever  found  a 
charm  in  the  young  girl,  and  his  present  disillusion 
ment  gave  him  even  more  anger  than  pain.  He 
took  leave  abruptly  and  coldly,  and  puzzled  his  brain 
for  a  long  time  afterward  over  the  mystery  of  Scho- 
lastica's  reserve. 

The  Countess  had  said  that  travelling  was  a  test  of 
friendship;  in  this  case  friendship  (or  whatever  the 
passion  was  to  be  called)  bade  fair  for  some  time  to 
resist  the  test.  Benvolio  passed  six  months  of  the 
liveliest  felicity.  The  world  has  nothing  better  to 
offer  to  a  man  of  sensibility  than  a  first  visit  to  Italy 
during  those  years  of  life  when  perception  is  at  its 
keenest,  when  discretion  has  arrived,  and  yet  youth 
has  not  departed.  He  made  with  the  Countess  a  long, 
slow  progress  through  the  lovely  land,  from  the  Alps 
to  the  Sicilian  Sea;  and  it  seemed  tohim  that  his  imagi 
nation,  his  intellect,  his  genius,  expanded  with  every 
breath  and  ripened  with  every  glance.  The  Countess 
was  in  an  almost  equal  ecstasy,  and  their  sympathy 


Benvolio  267 


was  perfect  in  all  points  save  the  lady's  somewhat 
indiscriminate  predilection  for  assemblies  and  recep 
tions.  She  had  a  thousand  letters  of  introduction  to 
deliver,  and  they  entailed  a  vast  deal  of  social  ex 
ertion.  Often,  on  balmy  nights  when  he  would  have 
preferred  to  meditate  among  the  ruins  of  the  Forum, 
or  to  listen  to  the  moonlit  ripple  of  the  Adriatic, 
Benvolio  found  himself  dragged  away  to  kiss  the 
hand  o-f  a  decayed  princess,  or  to  take  a  pinch  from 
the  snuff-box  of  an  epicurean  cardinal.  But  the 
ardinals,  the  princesses,  the  ruins,  the  warm  south 
ern  tides  which  seemed  the  voice  of  history  itself — 
hese  and  a  thousand  other  things  resolved  them 
selves  into  a  vast  pictorial  spectacle — the  very  stuff 
that  inspiration  is  made  of.  Everything  he  had 
written  before  coming  to  Italy  now  appeared  to  him 
worthless ;  this  was  the  needful  stamp,  the  consecra 
tion  of  talent.  One  day,  however,  this  pure  felicity 
was  clouded ;  by  a  trifle  you  will  say,  possibly,  but 
you  must  remember  that  in  men  of  Benvolio's  dispo 
sition  primary  impulses  are  almost  always  produced 
by  trifles  light  as  air.  The  Countess,  speaking  of 
the  tone  of  voice  of  some  one  they  had  met,  hap 
pened  to  say  that  it  reminded  her  of  the  voice  of  that 
queer  little  woman  at  home — the  daughter  of  the 
blind  professor.  Was  this  pure  inadvertence,  or 
was  it  malicious  design?  Benvolio  never  knew, 
though  he  immediately  demanded  of  her,  in  sur- 


268  Master  Eustace 

prise,  when  and  where  she  had  heard  Scholastica's 
voice.  His  whole  attention  was  aroused ;  the  Coun 
tess  perceived  it,  and  for  a  moment  she  hesitated. 
Then  she  bravely  proclaimed  that  she  had  seen  the 
young  girl  in  the  musty  old  book-room  where  she 
spent  her  dreary  life.  At  these  words,  uttered  in  a 
profoundly  mocking  tone,  Benvolio  had  an  extraor 
dinary  sensation.  He  was  walking  with  the  Count 
ess  in  the  garden  of  a  palace,  and  they  had  just  ap 
proached  the  low  balustrade  of  a  terrace  which  com 
manded  a  magnificent  view.  On  one  side  were  vio 
let  Apenines,  dotted  here  and  there  with  a  gleam 
ing  castle  or  convent;  on  the  other  stood  the  great 
palace  through  whose  galleries  the  two  had  just  been 
strolling,  with  its  walls  incrusted  with  medallions 
and  its  cornice  charged  with  statues.  But  Benvolio's 
heart  began  to  beat ;  the  tears  sprang  to  his  eyes ;  the 
perfect  landscape  around  him  faded  away  and  turned 
to  nothing,  and  there  rose  before  him,  distinctly, 
vividly  present,  the  old  brown  room  that  looked  into 
the  dull  northern  garden,  tenanted  by  the  quiet  fig 
ures  he  had  once  told  himself  that  he  loved.  He 
had  a  choking  sensation  and  a  sudden,  overwhelm 
ing  desire  to  return  to  his  own  country. 

The  Countess  would  say  nothing  more  than  that 
the  fancy  had  taken  her  one  day  to  go  and  see  Scho- 
lastica.  "I  suppose  I  may  go  where  I  please!"  she 
cried  in  the  tone  of  the  great  lady  who  is  accustomed 


Benvolio  269 


to  believe  that  her  glance  confers  honor  wherever  it 
falls.  "I'm  sure  I  did  her  no  harm.  She's  a  good 
little  creature,  and  it's  not  her  fault  if  she's  so  un 
fortunately  plain."  Benvolio  looked  at  her  intently, 
but  he  saw  that  he  would  learn  nothing  from  her 
that  she  did  not  choose  to  tell.  As  he  stood  there 
he  was  amazed  to  find  how  natural  or  at  least  how 
easy  it  was  to  disbelieve  her.  She  had  been  with 
the  young  girl :  that  accounted  for  anything ;  it  ac 
counted  abundantly  for  Scholastica's  painful  con 
straint.  What  had  the  Countess  said  and  done? 
what  infernal  trick  had  she  played  upon  the  poor 
girl's  simplicity?  He  helplessly  wondered,  but  he 
felt  that  she  could  be  trusted  to  hit  her  mark.  She 
had  done  him  the  honor  to  be  jealous,  and  to  alienate 
Scholastica  she  had  invented  some  infernally  plaus 
ible  charge  against  himself.  He  felt  sick  and  angry, 
and  for  a  week  he  treated  his  companion  with  the 
coldest  civility.  The  charm  was  broken,  the  cup  of 
pleasure  was  drained.  This  remained  no  secret  to 
the  Countess,  who  was  profoundly  vexed  at  her  own 
indiscretion.  At  last  she  abruptly  told  Benvolio  that 
the  test  had  failed ;  they  must  separate ;  he  would 
please  her  by  taking  his  leave.  He  asked  no  second 
permission,  but  bade  her  farewell  in  the  midst  of  her 
little  retinue,  and  went  journeying  out  of  Italy  with 
no  other  company  than  his  thick-swarming  memories 
and  projects. 


270 Master  Eustace 

The  first  thing  he  did  on  reaching  home  was  to 
repair  to  the  Professor's  abode.  The  old  man's 
chair,  for  the  first  time,  was  empty,  and  Scholastica 
was  not  in  the  room.  He  went  out  into  the  garden, 
where,  after  wandering  hither  and  thither,  he  found 
the  young  girl  seated  on  a  secluded  bench.  She  was 
dressed,  as  usual,  in  black ;  but  her  head  was  droop 
ing,  her  empty  hands  were  folded,  and  her  face  was 
sadder  even  than  when  he  had  last  seen  her.  If  she 
had  been  changed  then,  she  was  doubly  changed 
now.  Benvolio  looked  round,  and  as  the  Professor 
was  nowhere  visible,  he  immediately  guessed  the 
cause  of  her  affliction.  The  good  old  man  had  gone 
to  join  his  immortal  brothers,  the  classic  sages,  and 
Scholastica  was  utterly  alone.  She  seemed  fright 
ened  at  seeing  him,  but  he  took  her  hand,  and  she 
let  him  sit  down  beside  her.  "Whatever  you  were 
once  told  that  made  you  think  ill  of  me  is  detestably 
false,"  he  said.  "I  have  a  boundless  friendship  for 
you,  and  now  more  than  ever  I  should  like  to  show 
it."  She  slowly  gathered  courage  to  meet  his  eyes ; 
she  found  them  reassuring,  and  at  last,  though  she 
never  told  him  in  what  way  her  mind  had  been  pois 
oned,  she  suffered  him  to  believe  that  her  old  confi 
dence  had  come  back.  She  told  him  how  her  father 
had  died  and  how,  in  spite  of  the  high  philosophical 
maxims  he  had  bequeathed  to  her  for  her  consola 
tion,  she  felt  very  lonely  and  helpless.  Her  uncle 


Benvolio  271 


had  offered  her  a  maintenance,  meagre  but  sufficient ; 
she  had  the  old  serving-woman  to  keep  her  company, 
and  she  meant  to  live  where  she  was  and  occupy  her 
self  with  collecting1  her  father's  papers  and  giving 
them  to  the  world  according  to  a  plan  for  which  he 
had  left  particular  directions.  She  seemed  irresist 
ibly  appealing  and  touching  and  yet  full  of  secret 
dignity  and  self-support.  Benvolio  fell  in  love  with 
her  on  the  spot,  and  only  abstained  from  telling  her 
so  because  he  remembered  just  in  time  that  he  had 
an  engagement  with  the  Countess  which  had  not  yet 
been  formally  rescinded.  He  paid  her  a  long  visit, 
and  they  went  in  together  and  rummaged  over  her 
father's  books  and  papers.  The  old  scholar's  liter 
ary  memoranda  proved  to  be  extremely  valuable. 
It  would  be  a  great  work  and  a  most  interesting  en 
terprise  to  give  them  to  the  world.  When  Scholas- 
tica  heard  Benvolio' s  high  estimate  of  them  her 
cheek  began  to  glow  and  her  spirit  to  revive.  The 
present  then  was  secure,  she  seemed  to  say  to  her 
self,  and  she  would  have  occupation  for  many  a 
month.  He  offered  to  give  her  every  assistance  in 
his  power,  and  in  consequence  he  came  daily  to  see 
her.  Scholastica  lived  so  much  out  of  the  world 
that  she  was  not  obliged  to  trouble  herself  about  gos 
sip.  Whatever  jests  were  aimed  at  the  young  man 
for  his  visible  devotion  to  a  mysterious  charmer,  he 
was  very  sure  that  her  ear  was  never  wounded  by 


272 Master  Eustace __^ 

base  insinuations.  The  old  serving-woman  sat  in  a 
corner,  nodding  over  her  distaff,  and  the  two  friends 
held  long  confabulations  over  yellow  manuscripts  in 
which  the  commentary,  it  must  be  confessed,  did  not 
always  adhere  very  closely  to  the  text.  Six  months 
elapsed,  and  Benvolio  found  an  ineffable  charm  in 
this  mild  mixture  of  sentiment  and  study.  He  had 
never  in  his  life  been  so  long  of  the  same  mind;  it 
really  seemed  as  if,  as  the  phrase  is,  the  fold  was 
taken  for  ever,  as  if  he  had  done  with  the  world 
and  were  ready  to  live  henceforth  in  the  closet.  He 
hardly  thought  of  the  Countess,  and  they  had  no  cor 
respondence.  She  was  in  Italy,  in  Greece,  in  the 
East,  in  the  Holy  Land,  in  places  and  situations  that 
taxed  the  imagination. 

One  day,  in  the  darkness  of  the  vestibule,  after  he 
had  left  Scholastica,  he  was  arrested  by  a  little  old 
man  of  sordid  aspect,  of  whom  he  could  make  out 
hardly  more  than  a  pair  of  sharply-glowing  little 
eyes  and  an  immense  bald  head,  polished  like  an 
ivory  ball.  He  was  a  quite  terrible  little  figure  in 
his  way,  and  Benvolio  at  first  was  frightened.  "Mr. 
Poet,"  said  the  old  man,  "let  me  say  a  single  word. 
I  give  my  niece  a  maintenance.  She  may  do  what 
she  likes.  But  she  forfeits  every  stiver  of  her  al 
lowance  and  her  expectations  if  she  is  fool  enough 
to  marry  a  fellow  who  scribbles  rhymes.  I'm  told 
they  are  sometimes  an  hour  finding  two  that  will 


Benvolio  273 


match !  Good  evening,  Mr.  Poet !"  Benvolio  heard 
a  sound  like  the  faint  jingle  of  loose  coin  in  a  trow- 
sers  pocket,  and  the  old  man  abruptly  retreated  into 
his  domiciliary  gloom.  Benvolio  had  never  seen  him 
before,  and  he  had  no  wish  ever  to  see  him  again. 
He  had  not  proposed  to  himself  to  marry  Scholas- 
tica,  and  even  if  he  had,  I  am  pretty  sure  he  would 
now  have  taken  the  modest  view  of  the  matter,  and 
decided  that  his  hand  and  heart  were  an  insufficient 
compensation  for  the  forfeiture  of  a  miser's  fortune. 
The  young  girl  never  spoke  of  her  uncle :  he  lived 
quite  alone  apparently,  haunting  his  upper  chambers 
like  a  restless  ghost,  and  sending  her,  by  the  old 
serving-woman,  her  slender  monthly  allowance, 
wrapped  up  in  a  piece  of  old  newspaper.  It  was 
shortly  after  this  that  the  Countess  at  last  came 
back.  Benvolio  had  been  taking  one  of  his  long  cus 
tomary  walks,  and  passing  through  the  park  on  his 
way  home,  he  had  sat  down  on  a  bench  to  rest.  In 
a  few  moments  a  carriage  came  rolling  by ;  in  it  sat 
the  Countess — beautiful,  sombre,  solitary.  He  rose 
with  a  ceremonious  salute,  and  she  went  her  way. 
But  in  five  minutes  she  passed  back  again,  and  this 
time  her  carriage  stopped.  She  gave  him  a  single 
glance,  and  he  got  in.  For  a  week  afterward  Scho- 
lastica  vainly  awaited  him.  What  had  happened? 
It  had  happened  that  though  she  had  proved  herself 
both  false  and  cruel,  the  Countess  again  asserted 


274 Master  Eustace __ 

her  charm,  and  our  precious  hero  again  succumbed 
to  it.  But  he  resumed  his  visits  to  Scholastica  after 
an  interval  of  neglect  not  long  enough  to  be  unpar 
donable  ;  the  only  difference  was  that  now  they  were 
not  so  frequent. 

My  story  draws  to  a  close,  for  I  am  afraid  you 
have  already  lost  patience  with  our  young  man's 
eternal  comings  and  goings.  Another  year  ran  its 
course,  and  the  Professor's  manuscripts  were  ar 
ranged  in  great  piles,  and  almost  ready  for  the 
printer.  Benvolio  had  had  a  constant  hand  in  the 
work,  and  had  found  it  exceedingly  interesting;  it 
involved  inquiries  and  researches  of  the  most  stimu 
lating  and  profitable  kind.  Scholastica  was  very 
happy.  Her  friend  was  often  absent  for  many  days, 
during  which  she  knew  he  was  leading  the  great 
world's  life ;  but  she  had  learned  that  if  she  patiently 
waited,  the  pendulum  would  swing  back  and  he 
would  reappear  and  bury  himself  in  their  books  and 
papers  and  talk.  And  it  was  not  all  work  and  no 
play  between  them  either ;  they  talked  of  everything 
that  came  into  their  heads,  and  Benvolio  by  no  means 
forbade  himself  to  descant  on  those  things  touching 
which  this  sacred  vow  of  personal  ignorance  had 
been  taken  for  his  companion.  He  took  her  wholly 
into  his  poetic  confidence/and  read  her  everything 
he  had  written  since  his  return  from  Italy.  The 
more  he  worked  the  more  he  desired  to  work;  and 


Benvolio  275 


so,  at  this  time,  occupied  as  he  was  with  editing  the 
Professor's  manuscripts,  he  had  never  been  so  pro 
ductive  on  his  own  account.  He  wrote  another 
drama,  on  an  Italian  subject,  which  was  performed 
with  magnificent  success ;  and  this  he  had  discussed 
with  Scholastica  scene  by  scene  and  speech  by  speech. 
He  proposed  to  her  to  come  and  see  it  acted  from  a 
covered  box,  where  her  seclusion  would  be  com 
plete.  She  seemed  for  an  instant  to  feel  the  force  of 
the  temptation ;  then  she  shook  her  head  with  a  frank 
smile,  and  said  it  was  better  not.  The  play  was  dedi 
cated  to  the  Countess,  who  had  suggested  the  sub 
ject  to  him  in  Italy,  where  it  had  been  imparted  to 
her,  as  a  family  anecdote,  by  one  of  her  old  prin 
cesses.  This  easy,  fruitful  double  life  might  have 
lasted  for  ever  but  for  two  most  regrettable  events. 
Might  have  lasted  I  say;  you  observe  I  do  not  affirm 
it  positively.  Scholastica  became  preoccupied  and 
depressed;  she  was  suffering  a  secret  annoyance. 
She  concealed  it  as  far  as  she  might  from  her  friend, 
and  with  some  success;  for  although  he  suspected 
something  and  questioned  her,  she  persuaded  him 
that  it  was  his  own  fancy.  In  reality  it  was  no  fancy 
at  all,  but  the  very  uncomfortable  fact  that  her 
shabby  old  uncle,  the  miser,  was  making  himself  ex 
cessively  disagreeable  to  her.  He  had  told  Benvolio 
that  she  might  do  as  pleased  her,  but  he  had  recently 
revoked  this  amiable  concession.  He  informed  her 


276 Master  Eustace 

one  day  by  means  of  an  illegible  note,  scrawled  with 
a  blunt  pencil,  on  the  back  of  an  old  letter,  that  her 
beggarly  friend  the  poet  came  to  see  her  altogether 
too  often ;  that  he  was  determined  she  never  should 
marry  a  crack-brained  rhymester;  and  that  before 
the  sacrifice  became  too  painful  she  would  be  so 
good  as  to  dismiss  Mr.  Benvolio.  This  was  accom 
panied  by  an  intimation,  more  explicit  than  gra 
cious,  that  he  opened  his  money  bags  only  for  those 
who  deferred  to  his  incomparable  wisdom.  Scho- 
lastica  was  poor,  and  simple,  and  lonely;  but  she  was 
proud,  for  all  that,  with  a  silent  pride  of  her  own, 
and  her  uncle's  charity,  proffered  on  these  terms, 
became  intolerably  bitter  to  her  soul.  She  sent  him 
word  that  she  thanked  him  for  his  past  liberality, 
but  she  would  no  longer  be  a  charge  upon  him.  She 
said  to  herself  that  she  could  work ;  she  had  a  su 
perior  education ;  many  women,  she  knew,  supported 
themselves.  She  even  found  something  inspiring  in 
the  idea  of  going  out  into  the  world  of  which  she 
knew  so  little,  to  seek  her  fortune.  Her  great  desire, 
however,  was  to  keep  her  situation  a  secret  from 
Benvolio,  and  to  prevent  his  knowing  the  sacrifice 
she  was  making  for  him.  This  it  is  especially  that 
proves  she  was  proud.  It  so  befell  that  circum 
stances  made  secrecy  possible.  I  don't  know 
whether  the  Countess  had  always  an  idea  of  mar 
rying  Benvolio,  but  her  unquenchable  vanity  still 


Benvolio  277 


suffered  from  the  spectacle  of  his  divided  allegiance, 
and  it  suggested  to  her  a  truly  malignant  revenge. 
A  brilliant  political  mission,  for  a  particular  pur 
pose,  was  about  to  be  despatched  to  a  neighboring 
government,  and  half  a  dozen  young  men  of  emi 
nence  were  to  be  attached  to  it.  The  Countess  had 
influence  at  court,  and  without  saying  anything  to 
Benvolio,  she  immediately  urged  his  claim  to  a  post, 
on  the  ground  of  his  distinguished  services  to  litera 
ture.  She  pulled  her  wires  so  cleverly  that  in  a  very 
short  time  she  had  the  pleasure  of  presenting  him  his 
appointment,  on  a  great  sheet  of  parchment,  from 
which  the  royal  seal  dangled  by  a  blue  ribbon.  It 
involved  an  exile  of  but  a  few  weeks,  and  to  this, 
with  her  eye  on  the  sequel  of  her  project,  she  was 
able  to  resign  herself.  Benvolio's  imagination  took 
fire  at  the  thought  of  spending  a  month  at  a  foreign 
court,  in  the  very  hotbed  of  consummate  diplomacy; 
this  was  a  phase  of  experience  with  which  he  was 
as  yet  unacquainted.  He  departed,  and  no  sooner 
had  he  gone  than  the  Countess,  at  a  venture,  waited 
upon  Scholastica.  She  knew  she  was  poor,  and  she 
believed  that  in  spite  of  her  homely  virtues  she 
would  not,  if  the  opportunity  was  placed  in  a  cer 
tain  light,  prove  implacably  indisposed  to  better  her 
fortunes.  She  knew  nothing  of  the  young  girl's 
contingent  expectations  from  her  uncle,  and  her  in 
terference,  at  this  juncture,  was  simply  a  remark- 


278 Master  Eustace 

able  coincidence.  She  laid  before  her  a  proposal 
from  a  certain  great  lady,  whose  husband,  an  emi 
nent  general,  had  just  been  dubbed  governor  of  an 
island  on  the  other  side  of  the  globe.  This  lady 
desired  a  preceptress  for  her  children ;  she  had  heard 
of  Scholastica' s  merit,  and  she  ventured  to  hope  that 
she  might  persuade  her  to  accompany  her  to  the  an 
tipodes  and  reside  in  her  family.  The  offer  was 
brilliant;  to  Scholastica  it  seemed  mysteriously  and 
providentially  opportune.  Nevertheless  she  hesi 
tated,  and  demanded  time  for  reflection;  without 
telling  herself  why,  she  wished  to  wait  till  Benvolio 
returned.  He  wrote  her  two  or  three  letters,  full  of 
the  echoes  of  his  actual  life,  and  without  a  word 
about  the  things  that  were  nearer  her  own  experi 
ence.  The  month  elapsed,  but  he  was  still  absent. 
Scholastica,  who  was  in  correspondence  with  the 
governor's  wife,  delayed  her  decision  from  week  to 
week.  She  had  sold  her  father's  manuscripts  to  a 
publisher,  at  a  very  poor  bargain,  and  gone,  mean 
while,  to  live  in  a  convent.  At  last  the  governor's 
lady  demanded  her  ultimatum.  The  poor  girl 
scanned  the  horizon,  and  saw  no  rescuing  friend; 
Benvolio  was  still  at  the  court  of  Illyria !  What  she 
saw  was  the  Countess's  fine  eyes  eagerly  watching 
her  over  the  top  of  her  fan.  They  seemed  to  con 
tain  a  horrible  menace,  and  to  hold  somehow  her 
happiness  at  their  mercy.  Her  heart  sank;  she 


Benvolio  279 


gathered  up  her  few  possessions  and  set  sail,  with 
her  illustrious  protectors,  for  the  antipodes.  Shortly 
after  her  departure  Benvolio  returned.  He  felt  a 
terrible  pang  of  rage  and  grief  when  he  learned  that 
she  had  gone ;  he  went  to  the  Countess,  prepared  to 
accuse  her  of  the  Basest  treachery.  But  she  checked 
his  reproaches  by  arts  that  she  had  never  gone  so  far 
as  to  use  before,  and  promised  him  that  if  he  would 
trust  her,  he  should  never  miss  that  pale-eyed  little 
governess.  It  can  hardly  be  supposed  that  he  be 
lieved  her,  but  he  appears  to  have  been  guilty  of  let 
ting*  himself  be  persuaded  without  belief.  For  some 
time  after  this  he  almost  lived  with  the  Countess. 
He  had,  with  infinite  pains,  purchased  from  his 
neighbor,  the  miser,  the  right  of  occupancy  of  the 
late  Professor's  apartment.  The  repulsive  old  man, 
in  spite  of  his  aversion  to  rhymesters,  had  not  re 
sisted  the  financial  argument,  and  seemed  greatly 
amazed  that  a  poet  should  have  a  dollar  to  spend. 
Scholastica  had  left  all  things  in  their  old  places,  but 
Benvolio,  for  the  present,  never  went  into  the  room. 
He  turned  the  key  in  the  door,  and  kept  it  in  his 
waistcoat  pocket,  where,  while  he  was  with  the 
Countess,  hrs  fingers  fumbled  with  it.  Several 
months  rolled  by,  and  the  Countess's  promise  was 
not  verified.  He  missed  Scholastica  intensely,  and 
missed  her  more  as  time  elapsed.  He  began  at  last 
to  go  to  the  old  room  with  the  garden,  and  to  try 


280  Master  Eustace 

to  do  some  work  there.  He  succeeded  in  a  fashion, 
but  it  seemed  dreary — doubly  dreary  when  he  re 
flected  what  it  might  have  been.  Suddenly  he  ceased 
to  visit  the  Countess ;  a  long  time  passed  without  her 
seeing  him.  She  met  him  at  another  house,  and  had 
some  remarkable  words  with  him.  She  covered  him 
with  reproaches  that  were  doubtless  deserved,  but  he 
made  her  an  answer  that  caused  her  to  open  her  eyes 
and  flush,  and  admit  afterward  that,  for  a  clever 
woman,  she  had  been  a  great  fool.  "Don't  you  see," 
he  said — "can't  you  imagine  that  I  cared  for  you 
only  by  contrast?  You  took  the  trouble  to  kill  the 
contrast,  and  with  it  you  killed  everything  else. 
For  a  constancy  I  prefer  this!"  And  he  tapped 
his  poetic  brow.  He  never  saw  the  Countess  again. 
I  rather  regret  now  that  I  said  at  the  beginning  of 
my  story  that  it  was  not  to  be  a  fairy  tale ;  other 
wise  I  should  be  at  liberty  to  say,  with  harmonious 
geniality,  that  if  Benvolio  missed  Scholastica  he 
missed  the  Countess  also,  and  led  an  extremely  fret 
ful  and  unproductive  life,  until  one  day  he  sailed 
for  the  antipodes  and  brought  Scholastica  home. 
After  this  he  began  to  produce  again;  only,  many 
people  said,  his  poetry  had  become  dismally  dull. 
But  excuse  me;  I  am  writing  as  if  this  were  a  fairy 
tale! 


mHIS  POOK  TR  T>TTT1  r 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


: 


, 


250ct'61 


i 


15  Feb'62LU 


— — 





MM 


\ 


•"'' 


LOAN 


APR  iiasf 


\ 


AUTO.  DiSC. 


-SEP  2  5  1986 


r 


LD  21A-50w-12,'GO 
(B6221slO)476B 


G. 

Universu 


GENERAL  LIBRARY -U.C.  BERKELEY 


9i  o  rr 
J  Ov) 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


